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IIn the run-up to the historic 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, Hollywood is hoping a new film about NASA staging a fake version of the moon landing will take off at the box office.
In fly me to the moon released in theaters July 12, a Nixon White House aide (Woody Harrelson) sends NYC advertising executive Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to oversee a fake version of the first moonwalk in a sound scene in case the real version. it doesn’t happen. The idea is that the United States – then in the middle of the Cold War with the Soviet Union – cannot afford to fail. The White House wants the American people to see a victory, and so it is going full steam ahead in its race to be the first country to send a man to the moon more than a decade after the communist nation sent the first man-made satellite in orbit in 1957. .
People leaving the theater later Fly Me to the Moon may have two questions: Was there really a PR maven hired to “sell” the moon to the American people? And did the US government really fake a moonwalk in case the real Apollo 11 mission didn’t go to plan? Here is the true story that inspired the movie.
The real PR for the moon landing
To be clear, the government did not hire a PR maven to oversee the filming of a fake moon landing in case the mission failed.
“There was no special effort to ‘sell’ the Apollo program, especially not one aimed at raising funds for the agency either directly or indirectly,” said Bill Barry, the historic head of NASA from 2010 to 2020. who consulted on the script, tells TIME.
Roughly speaking 400,000 people who worked on the lunar mission, about three-quarters of those people worked for private contractors, who provided services that were allowed to market, according to Richard Jurek, co-author of Moon Marketing: Selling the Apollo Lunar Program.
“They were the ones who built the NASA press kits and ran the ad campaigns,” Jurek tells TIME.. “They had permission from NASA to do it, but they did these (advertising) campaigns themselves.
It is true that astronauts wore Omega watches because the devices withstand all kinds of tests in different weather conditions. In the movie, Jones approaches companies like Omega to set up marketing campaigns, but that’s not how it would happen. The film also implies that money from the sponsorship business helped pay for the Apollo 11 mission, but that didn’t actually happen, according to Jurek.
It is stated on NASA’s website that “as a government agency, NASA does not promote or endorse or appear to promote or endorse a commercial product, service, or activity.” So sponsorships were definitely not part of the Apollo 11 PR campaign, notes Barry. Some astronauts did endorse products, but only after they were no longer on the NASA payroll.
“Among the NASA employees I talked to about the script, this was the thing that caused the most laughter,” says Barry. “In dealing with the public in any form, I am regularly reminded by our judges that giving even the appearance of an endorsement for a commercial product would get me into big trouble.”
The real head of NASA’s public affairs division on the walk to the Apollo 11 moon landing was a journalist named Julian Scheer. He oversaw a team of former journalists who helped the media cover the space program and profiled staffers and astronauts. Scheer was the one who insisted that the first steps on the moon be televised live. In contrast to the Soviets, who did not let journalists into the inner workings of the space program, NASA allowed its staffers and astronauts to speak freely.
In the run up to the lunar landing, the PR gurus at NASA were largely concerned with what NASA would tell the world if the astronauts died during the mission, so countless statements were prepared that were never used. Once the Apollo 11 astronauts returned safely to the moon, NASA PR focused on convincing the public that the space program was still necessary to return to the moon and explore other planets. As Jurek says: “Most people see NASA as only existing to get astronauts to the moon. So once we do that, it’s like, ‘Okay, now what?'”
The origins of the moon landing theory
When it comes to the idea of a filmed moonwalk, the answer is a little clearer. For the most part, at least.
“There is no evidence that NASA has ever faked a moonwalk,” says Barry.
It is true that there was a space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. American leaders feared that if the Soviets reached the moon first, then the communist government would be seen as the superior form of government, compared to the democracy of the United States. However, there is nothing to suggest that the United States was so desperate in its mission that it considered simulating a moon landing for the American public.
However, conspiracy theories persist today, with some doubting the successful Apollo 11 mission that involved astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin. There are people who falsely believe that NASA did the first moonwalk. Barry points out that if the US faked the moon landing, the Soviet government would have been in on it all. The United States also worked with countries around the world to communicate with the Apollo spacecraft.
That said, despite all the physical rock samples brought back from the moon and analyzed by a consortium of highly respected scientists, a small minority of Americans still thought there was no way NASA had the budget or time to complete the president John F. Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. A 2021 University of New Hampshire survey found 10% of Americans believe that NASA did not land on the moon.
“There was only one week in the 1960s when everyone was in favor of spending more money on the space program – more than 50% of Americans. It’s the week we landed on the moon,” says Barry .
According to Peter Knight, author of Conspiracy Culture: From the Kennedy Assassination to “The X-Files,”“The conspiracy theory that the moon landing was a hoax can be traced back to a 1976 self-published book. We never went to the moon: the scam of thirty billion US dollars by Bill Kaysing, a former US naval officer. The basic premise is that NASA couldn’t make JFK’s deadline, so they sent astronauts into Earth orbit and staged a moonwalk in a movie studio. To some, Kaysing’s military credentials gave the impression that he had some inside knowledge.
The book also adapts to the culture of the times. The 1970s marked the beginning of years of decline in trust in the US government, between the scandals of the Vietnam War and Watergate. Conspiracy theories about the sudden assassination of JFK in 1963 have been swirling for years.
“For many people, there was a feeling that the government had lied,” Knight tells TIME. “That’s the context in which Kaysing’s book comes out.”
The 1978 fictional film Capricorn one, about NASA staging a fake Mars landing, only dampened the flames. And then Kaysing’s ideas gained popularity in the 1980s among “flat-Earthers,” conspiracy theorists who falsely believe the Earth is flat. Over the years, his false theory spread through talk radio, zines, books and gun shows in the pre-social media era.
Moon landing conspiracy theories may be more widespread among Russian citizens than American citizens. A Russian Public Opinion Research Center 2020 survey found half of Russians believe the 1969 moon landing never happened. Offering an explanation for why the moon landing conspiracy theory persists among some Americans, Knight says, “A lot of people feel that if we can’t fix our problems at home, what are we going to do to try to engage in a fantasy idea of space exploration? So I think the conspiracy theories speak to some of these concerns.”
When asked if a film depicting a moon landing could lead people to wonder if it was a hoax, Barry said he believes anyone who sees the film will see from the start that the film is not a documentary, but a clear parody. of conspiracy theorists is a romantic comedy. And for the skeptics, there is plenty of evidence online that “we landed on the moon, not just once, but six times.”
