Review of Media, NASA, and America’s Quest for the Moon, Harlen Makemson
2011; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 88; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2161-430X
Autores Tópico(s)Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
ResumoMedia, NASA, and America's Quest for Moon. Harlen Makemson. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2009. 272 pp. $74.95 hbk. Harlen Makemson has written a thorough and well-researched history of America's lunar program through three perspectives. The charge given National Aeronautics and Administration at its birth in 1958 was to provide the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities. But agency had no guidelines for how to accomplish that goal. Makemson, an associate professor in School of Communications at Elon University, details some of internal battles within agency and between its early public relations apparatus and press as NASA struggled to find a balance between information control and transparency. During some early crises, critics charged that NASA actually stood for Never A Straight Answer. The book also examines relationship between devoted space advocates and news media. Makemson points to influence of Wernher von Braun's early articles in Collier's magazine during 1950s, which showed that print media could turn country's attention to stars. As space program took off in 1960s, young U.S. TV journalism field took off with it. Makemson details how broadcast network news executives fought fierce battles internally to fund coverage of space program, whose activities sprawled over multiple locations all around country. NASA's early reluctance to provide easy access to launch sites and Mission Control in Houston meant that television had to work especially hard to create visuals so necessary to medium. Once networks committed to covering space program, however, they spent enormous sums of money to out-do one another in a ratings race that eventually devolved into competitive inanities, as one network executive put it. Makemson also provides a history of how millions of Americans experienced accomplishments and tragedies of early space program through TV and print media. He refers to hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, aerospace industry reports, editorials, trade journal discussions, and internal documents produced by networks to outline how and why coverage unfolded as it did. The book begins with a description of von Braun's 1952 article in Collier's, Man on Moon: The Journey. Von Braun soon got a call from Disney, which was planning a TV program to tout its new California theme park. The Man in Space and Man and Moon episodes of Disneyland television series in 1955 whet public appetite for infant space program. Once Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, space race became a media focus for its military implications as well as for drama of men on moon. Because early space program was an offshoot of military's missile programs, NASA's early media policy reflected security and secrecy. The general rule was Do First, Talk Second, and all press requests had to go through Office of Public Information. But once inaugural members of astronaut corps were ready to be introduced to nation, NASA had to revise its public information policy to accommodate celebrity of seven men chosen to fly. Makemson unearths a wealth of details about how NASA balanced needs of a more and more demanding press with need to shelter agency from scrutiny while it attempted to work out a staggering number of technical and mechanical difficulties. After a series of difficult negotiations, NASA permitted a live pool video feed of first U.S. manned flight, a suborbital journey by Alan Shepard, despite chance that mission might spectacularly fail. …
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