Abstract
The origins and use of national space rhetoric used by NASA, the US government, and the media in America began during the Cold War era and relied, in part, on religious imagery to convey a message of exploration and conquest. The concept of space as a “New Frontier” was used in political speech, television, and advertising to reawaken a sense of manifest destiny in postwar America by reviving notions of religious freedom, courage, and exceptionalism—the same ideals that originally drove expansionist boosters first to the New World and then to the West. Using advertisements, political speeches, NASA documents, and other media, this paper will demonstrate how this rhetoric served to reinforce a culture held by many Americans who maintained a long tradition of believing that they were called on by God to settle New Frontiers and how this culture continues to influence how human spaceflight is portrayed today.
Highlights
Frederick Jackson Turner claimed that the American frontier had shaped America and defined the characteristics of being American
This paper explores how the rhetoric of the New Frontier was used in television and other media, such as in Walt Disney’s newly opened Disneyland theme park and in assorted record albums to help further engage the public imagination, and concludes with a discussion of how a
Fletcher stepped down from civil service on 8 April 1989. During his lengthy tenure at NASA, Fletcher got caught up in America’s national space rhetoric, even alluding to his Mormon ancestors: “History teaches that the process of pushing back frontiers on Earth begins with exploration and discovery is followed by permanent settlements and economic development
Summary
Olin Teague, chairman of the powerful Manned Space Flight Subcommittee, noted that before the space race, America believed there were no more first-class “challenges”, no more “new frontiers.” He concluded that the idea of lunar exploration had “reawakened” America’s “spirit of adventure and achievement” like nothing since “the days of the pioneers” During the 1960 presidential campaign, President Kennedy exploited a growing public concern about the space race that was fueled by an assertion of a “missile gap”, a fear-inducing falsehood that his party put forth at the expense of the Eisenhower administration This feeling of technological inadequacy was further enhanced by a series of successive Soviet space spectaculars that, when compared to early American launch failures, created a public fear that the United States had fallen behind their Russian counterparts, especially in the production of missiles.
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