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(Photo:President John F. Kennedy is briefed on the operation of Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral following the Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) flight. This was President Kennedy's first visit to Cape Canaveral. MA-6 astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr. (partially obscured) piloted the Mercury "Friendship 7" spacecraft on the United States' first human orbital flight. In the center (on Glenn's left) is Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., MA-6 flight director and Chief of Flight Operations at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). The MA-6 flight was on February 20, 1962. Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (right), pilot of the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission, made the United States' first manned space flight on May 5, 1961. Image Credit: NASA Last Updated: July 22, 2019 Editor: Sarah Loff  ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Marketing the Moon: 2of4:The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (The MIT Press) Hardcover – February 28, 2014 https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Moon-Selling-Apollo-Program/dp/0262026961 One of the most successful public relations campaigns in history, featuring heroic astronauts, press-savvy rocket scientists, enthusiastic reporters, deep-pocketed defense contractors, and Tang. In July 1969, ninety-four percent of American televisions were tuned to coverage of Apollo 11's mission to the moon. How did space exploration, once the purview of rocket scientists, reach a larger audience than My Three Sons? Why did a government program whose standard operating procedure had been secrecy turn its greatest achievement into a communal experience? InMarketing the Moon, David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek tell the story of one of the most successful marketing and public relations campaigns in history: the selling of the Apollo program.  Primed by science fiction, magazine articles, and appearances by Wernher von Braun on the “Tomorrowland” segments of the Disneyland prime time television show, Americans were a receptive audience for NASA's pioneering “brand journalism.” Scott and Jurek describe sophisticated efforts by NASA and its many contractors to market the facts about space travel—through press releases, bylined articles, lavishly detailed background materials, and fully produced radio and television features—rather than push an agenda. American astronauts, who signed exclusive agreements with Life magazine, became the heroic and patriotic faces of the program. And there was some judicious product placement: Hasselblad was the “first camera on the moon”; Sony cassette recorders and supplies of Tang were on board the capsule; and astronauts were equipped with the Exer-Genie personal exerciser. Everyone wanted a place on the bandwagon. Generously illustrated with vintage photographs, artwork, and advertisements, many never published before, Marketing the Moon shows that when Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind, it was a triumph not just for American engineering and rocketry but for American marketing and public relations.