Marketing Space, Part 4: Space’s Influence on Popular Culture, 1960-2000

The space race, which was one of the central conflicts of the Cold War, had a profound impact not only on the development of science and technology but also on the popular cultures of the United States and the Soviet Union. By demonstrating their own technological superiority, each state sought to strengthen its ideological influence.

With this article, we continue our series of publications called “Marketing Space.” Today, we will consider the influence of the space race on American and Soviet popular culture from the early 1960s to the end of the 20th century. In the Soviet Union, the space race was a powerful tool of state propaganda aimed at demonstrating the superiority of the socialist system, and all achievements in space were widely covered in the media, with cosmonauts transformed into national heroes and symbols of communist superiority. In the United States, meanwhile, space was associated in popular culture with technological progress, personal heroism, and scientific curiosity.

Cinema

Long before the start of the space race, Soviet cinema served as a means of spreading propaganda. Efforts to convey the ideals of socialism through film were already being made in the 1920s, and it was then that the first Soviet science fiction films appeared, including “Aelita” and “The Space Voyage,” which praised the socialist system.

After Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space, “Planet of Storms” (1962), which was directed by Pavel Klushantsev, was released. In this film, a space expedition embarks on humanity’s first journey to Venus. “Planet of Storms” was viewed by over 20 million Soviet viewers, and requests for screenings came from 28 countries worldwide. Some even believe that the film influenced Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and George Lucas’s “Star Wars.”

“Space euphoria” continued to captivate Soviet filmmakers for many years thereafter, and their plots featured both fantasies about the future and references to real-world events. One might even be able to study the history of space exploration through the medium of these films. For example, “I Was a Satellite of the Sun” (1959) was dedicated to the launch of Sputnik-1, Earth’s first artificial satellite, while “Taming of the Fire” (1972) centers on the work of aerospace engineer Sergey Korolev. Soviet cinema also reflected the Soviet-American rivalry, with one example being “The Heavens Beckon” (1959), which depicts a race between the Americans and the Soviet Union to make the first manned flight to Mars. Naturally, directors also explored the possibility of contact between Earthlings and extraterrestrial intelligence, as seen in “Toward Meeting a Dream” (1963) and later in “Solaris” (1968).

While the Soviet state used cinema to demonstrate the power and technological achievements of its totalitarian system, American cinema gave rise to films such as “2001: A Space Odyssey (1968),” which reflected the more philosophical and scientific aspects of space travel.

Other American films about space became truly iconic. The science fiction series “Star Trek” was aired between 1966 and 1968, though it only became a global phenomenon in the 1970s, when numerous television networks purchased syndication rights. Later, animated episodes about the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise and its crew were also produced.

Alongside “Star Trek,” another wildly popular space-themed film was George Lucas’s “Star Wars,” whose first installment was released in 1977. The franchise is one of the highest-grossing of all time, with more than half of its revenue coming from the sale of themed merchandise.

The “Star Wars” saga, of course, has had a massive impact on popular culture: it’s hard to find anyone unfamiliar with the iconic villain, Darth Vader, or heroes like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, or Princess Leia. Since 1977, numerous sequels, spin-offs, books, and video games have come out. Hollywood, meanwhile, has produced a parade of new films with impressive special effects, theaters have staged musicals based on “Star Wars,” and even musicians continue to draw inspiration from it: for instance, the lead singer of Coldplay has mentioned “Star Wars” as an influence on the album “Music of the Spheres.” “Star Wars” has even inspired the foundation of “Jediism” as a religion, while themed festivals and exhibitions take place in major museums worldwide. All of this is to say nothing about the truly incredible amount of fan merchandise and collectibles that is sold every year. 

Somewhat more realistically, the Space Shuttle’s first mission formed the basis of the educational documentary “Hail Columbia!”, which was filmed with high-resolution IMAX cameras in 1982. The title refers to an unofficial American “anthem” that was popular until the 1930s. The “Hail Columbia!” project was produced by a third party, although NASA had previously handled documentaries independently to avoid inaccuracies.

The space achievements of the latter half of the 20th century thus had a significant impact on cinema and television. Audiences eagerly went to theaters and watched TV shows that took place on spacecraft, on other planets, or featured human contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Numerous television programs, feature films, and documentaries inspired by space were released. In 1970, for example, NASA put out a documentary about exploring new planets titled “Seeds of Discovery.”

A bit later, with NASA’s assistance, the documentary “A New Look at Space” was produced. It highlighted the role of photography and film in the early implementation of American space programs. Furthermore, the astronomer Carl Sagan’s popular science TV series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” remained the most-watched series in the history of American public television for the entirety of the 1980s. Upon its release, the New York Times called it a “turning point for science-themed television programming.”

Interactive entertainment

Space travel and close encounters with aliens also continue to captivate both video game developers and gamers. In 1983, the game “Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space” was one of the first realistic space flight simulators. In another simulator, “ESS Mega” (1991), players could earn money by launching satellites and shuttles into orbit and by building a space laboratory. “Shuttle” (1992), meanwhile, allowed gamers to try their hand as a shuttle pilot, while “Buzz Aldrin’s Race Into Space” (1993) offered players the chance to play as a NASA employee and was notable for its high level of historical accuracy.

The USSR, and, later, the Russian Federation, were far from developing video games during this period, but they did actively copy Western arcade machines. One such example was “Astropilot,” the first electromechanical arcade game with a space theme. For a small fee, anyone could try their hand at being a pilot and successfully landing a spacecraft.

Fiction and popular science publications

In the 1950s & 60s, the covers of Soviet magazines like Tekhnika Molodezhi (Youth Technology), Nauka i Zhizn (Science and Life), and Znanie — Sila (Knowledge is Power) featured many “space-themed” covers. This period coincided with a peak in the development of science and technology, with a growing number of publications, books, novels, and short stories exploring the theme of space. While earlier works were more fantastical, this period saw an increase in realism in both texts and illustrations. The anticipation of new discoveries turned into euphoria over recent achievements—for example, the launch of the first satellite instantly became the main topic in popular science magazines. These magazines published details of orbital flights and, later, flights to the Moon, complete with illustrations “from space” that captivated with their “realism,” though they were typically just the product of artists’ imaginations. Either way, they depicted entire cities on distant planets. Tekhnika Molodezhi was particularly known for its colorful and futuristic illustrations, while other publications mostly adhered to black-and-white designs.

The latter half of the 1950s also marked a new wave of Soviet science fiction: during this time, works like “Andromeda Nebula” and “The Heart of the Earth” by Ivan Yefremov, “The Land of Crimson Clouds” by the Strugatsky Brothers, “The Belt of Life” by Ivan Zabelin, “Legends of the Star Captains” by Genrikh Altov, and many other novellas and novels were published.

The Soviet government used space for propaganda purposes, embedding them deeply into children’s daily lives through literature, magazines, and film.

For example, the first book in Nikolay Nosov’s series about “The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends” was published in 1953-1954, before the space race had even started. By the third part of the trilogy (1964-1965), the main character was flying to the Moon and bringing back a sample of lunar rock. Likewise, between 1962 and 1970, a series of five science fiction books by Alexander Svirin and Mikhail Lyashenko was published, featuring alien children (actually a spaceship crew) who set out to study Earth. In 1960, the first widescreen Soviet animated film, “Murzilka on a Satellite” was released. It was one of four animated films about the adventures of “special correspondent” Murzilka, who flew on a spacecraft. Through such works, the Soviet government aimed not so much to inform the younger generation as to emphasize the USSR’s role in the space race.

The magazine Murzilka, however, did feature actual news about space. It presented important information, for example about the first flight of the three-seat spacecraft “Voskhod” on October 12, 1964, in a format accessible to children, included cutouts for DIY rocket models, and short compilations of interesting facts about planets, space, and explorers.

In children’s periodicals, cosmonauts were depicted either in spacesuits or in military uniforms. Many boys at the time dreamed of wearing the former, while the latter symbolized the discipline and diligence that future pioneers and space explorers were expected to cultivate. To emphasize their qualities, heroes like Gagarin, Titov, and Tereshkova were always drawn accurately and avoided caricature, or otherwise depicted in photographs.

Although the active phase of the space race and its impact on popular culture peaked in the 1960s, the so-called “Golden Age” of American science fiction (1930s-1950s), associated with books like The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, and A Case of Conscience by James Blish, had long since come to an end. Nevertheless, the science fiction genre had successfully cultivated a large following, and new authors continued to explore humanity’s future in the context of space exploration in works like Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1980) by Douglas Adams, and Contact (1985) by Carl Sagan. Also notable are the seven-novel Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, which tells the story of a fictional “Galactic Empire,” Dan Simmons’s Hyperion, and Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy, set in the “Star Wars” expanded universe.

In the United States, as in the Soviet Union, many space-related materials were published in popular science periodicals. From 1950 to 1980, Galaxy Science Fiction magazine was highly influential in the science fiction genre. By the 1950s, it was hard to find a single cover that wasn’t space-themed, often featuring images of planets, rockets, or aliens.

For their part, children’s publications like Children’s Digest published explanations of astronomical concepts, collections of interesting facts, stories about adventures in space, themed crossword puzzles or quizzes.

Music

Space has inspired countless musicians over the decades. In 1963, the instrumental single “Telstar,” celebrating the first telecommunications satellite, became an unexpected hit for The Tornados. In 1967, The Byrds created the song “Space Odyssey” in tribute to the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That same year, Pink Floyd recorded two space-themed tracks: “Interstellar Overdrive” and “Astronomy Domine.” And, of course, in 1969, in the year of the first moon landing, David Bowie released his hit song, “Space Oddity” about Major Tom, an astronaut who becomes stranded in space. A music video was later filmed for the song.

Space continued to captivate young audiences during the Space Shuttle program era. Shuttle mission launches were broadcast not only on major channels like CNN but also on MTV, which launched five months after Columbia’s first flight. With MTV’s core audience mostly consisting of young people, live broadcasts of shuttle launches stood out among the usual music videos.

Musicians also harnessed space achievements to boost their popularity. The band Rush wrote “Countdown” in 1982 about the STS-1 mission and Columbia’s first flight, dedicating it to astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen and to NASA technicians. At the beginning of Kate Bush’s “Hello Earth,” from her album “Hounds of Love” (1985), a segment from a conversation between Columbia’s crew and NASA specialists during the shuttle’s re-entry can be heard: “Columbia is now traveling at nine times the speed of sound…”

Additionally, Deep Purple’s hit “Space Truckin,” Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” and Michael Jackson’s musical fantasy film “Moonwalker” helped to satisfy the public’s enthusiasm for space-themed music.

In the Soviet Union, one of the most popular songs of the 1960s was dedicated to space: “Fourteen Minutes to Launch,” was written by Vladimir Troshin just a few months before Yuri Gagarin’s spaceflight. Later, cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich sang this song as a duet during the first group space mission in 1962, when two spacecraft were simultaneously in orbit.

The song “I Am the Earth,” from the film “Toward Meeting a Dream,” was at one time considered the unofficial anthem of Soviet cosmonautics, though the cosmonauts themselves (according to rumors) preferred the song “Hope,” performed by Anna German.

Many songs were also dedicated to cosmonauts: for Gagarin, there were “Do You Know What Kind of Man He Was?”, “Gagarin’s Constellation,” and “Good Day, Major Gagarin,” while “The Girl Called Seagull” was written for Tereshkova. There were also more lyrical pieces, like “Tenderness,” which tells of a woman yearning for her lover who has gone to space. This song was part of the cycle called “Embracing the Heavens,” dedicated to Soviet pilots. One popular song, called “And Apple Trees Will Bloom on Mars,” expressed hope for the rapid conquest of space. Later, the hit “Grass by the House” (known in English as “Earth through the Porthole”) by the band Zemlyane, along with “Earth’s Attraction,” performed by Lev Leshchenko, and “Button Noses” by Valentina Tolkunova, also became popular.

Fashion

The space race also had a strong influence on fashion in both countries. In the West, people admired “star” dresses and jackets that Christian Dior created, inspired by his interest in astronomy. Other famous designers of the second half of the 20th century, such as André Courrèges, Pierre Cardin, and Paco Rabanne, also released “space” collections. These collections featured unusual cuts and materials that created the image of a “modern” person inspired by technological achievements. In 1964, Courrèges invented a space-inspired look consisting of clothing made from fabrics resembling plastic and hats with straps under the chin. Rabanne, on the other hand, preferred dresses made of chains and other metallic elements.

In the 1960s, go-go boots in acid colors and decorated with glitter became fashionable. The accessory palette was dominated by white-silver tones, and protective glasses and helmets were popular. In makeup, the main focus was on the eyes, boldly emphasizing the eyelids with glittery shadows.

For a long time, Soviet citizens did not have the opportunity to see how bright cosmic imagery could be used in clothing and accessories, so they settled for more “grounded” interpretations of the space theme: those approved by the party. The authorities warned against “imitating” Western culture but welcomed simple and functional wardrobe items. Nevertheless, following the launch of Sputnik-1, “practical” synthetic fabrics became fashionable in the USSR: nylon, Lycra, crimplene, vinyl, and dralon, as well as any fabrics with silver hues and star patterns.

Fragrances also took on an “otherworldly” quality, and cosmic elements appeared in the packaging design of perfumery products. In the autumn of 1958, the Novaya Zarya factory released a perfume with the symbolic name “Sputnik.”

To commemorate Gagarin’s flight into space, Novaya Zarya developed the perfume “Slava” as well as a men’s cologne called “Vostok,” which came in a distinctive pointed bottle. At the Severnoe Siyanie (“Northern Lights”) factory, they created a perfume in memory of Valentina Tereshkova’s flight and named it “Chaika,” or “Seagull,” after the radio call sign she used. And in honor of the docking of the Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft in 1975, Soviet perfumers collaborated with their colleagues from the American company Revlon to release the perfume and cologne “EPAS,” which stood for “Experimental Flight Apollo-Soyuz.”

Conclusion

As we have seen, the space race had a significant impact on the mass culture of both the United States and the Soviet Union. In America, it sparked a surge of scientific interest and captured the imaginations of Hollywood directors. Films like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the TV show “Star Trek” not only impressed audiences with their special effects but also encouraged viewers to think about space travel and a future inextricably linked to the exploration of other planets. The Soviet government turned space achievements into a propaganda tool, showcasing the superiority of the socialist system over capitalism. Films like “Planet of Storms” and “Solaris” were not meant merely as entertainment but were also meant to highlight the accomplishments of “socialist” science. Moreover, authors of literary works used space themes to promote socialist values rather than just scientific or philosophical ideas. Thus, space became not only a stage for technological rivalry but also an important cultural tool for shaping the national consciousness of both countries.