Leveraging Cultural Memory: Can NASA Use the Past to Shape Its Future?
By Linda Levitt | June 15th, 2009 | Category: Featured, Issue 4, On Public Life | No Comments »Was it really one giant leap for mankind? Conspiracy theorists deny it. GenXers couch it in Cold War nostalgia. Millennials shrug their shoulders. The 40th anniversary of the lunar landing presents NASA with both an opportunity and a need to reframe the cultural past. As American exceptionalism fades, the moon landing can be repositioned as a scientific marvel, rather than a one-up victory over the Soviet Union, the Cold War foe of another era. NASA can focus on its long history of technological triumph to regain some of its lost cultural capital. Reframing the Mercury and Apollo programs can make these narratives relevant to a younger generation, and potentially make the space program meaningful in new ways. Doing so, however, will take some work.
