Astronauts as Influencers
The exploration of the Moon has always allowed good observation. On July 20, 1969, between 600 and 650 million people around the world watched NASA Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin frolic on the surface of the Moon. The U.S. State Department estimates that 94 percent of American households with televisions, or some 53 million, had them locked to live coverage. This was the largest television audience ever recorded, before being surpassed by the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles in 1981.
Before this, French filmmaker Georges Méliès may not have attracted such a large audience with his 1902 science fiction film. The Journey to the Moon (A trip to the Moon), but the lunar adventures made The voice of the village‘s list of the 100 best films of the 20th century, and maintains a coveted 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
But the live broadcast of this transformative lunar event and the earlier fictional silent film that followed a rocket to the moon happened long before the dawn of social media. Not to mention the now ubiquitous reality that savvy viewers can access information and entertainment by reaching into their pockets instead of crowding around television sets or congregating in turn-of-the-century movie theaters.
Enter Artemis II.
The four Artemis II astronauts aboard the Orion capsule for their 10-day journey around the Moon and back have appeared on a dizzying array of entertainment platforms. The leg of the journey that saw them launch a slingshot around the moon, for example, was streamed on NASA+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max and Roku. Those most curious about the Moon could follow the entire mission, from launch to landing, on NASA’s YouTube channel, which broadcasts videos and images 24/7.
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With this constellation of viewing options instead of a single channel on which to watch the Artemis II lunar mission, the viewership numbers are all over the place and difficult to gather. According to The Hollywood ReporterTV news networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MS NOW attracted 27.3 million viewers with coverage of Artemis II’s return to Earth last week. And 18.1 million people watched the mission’s launch 10 days earlier on those same six networks (plus Telemundo), according to media analytics firm Nielsen.
Add the social media audience to these traditional media audience sizes, and the Artemis II team is approaching the Armstrong reveal by taking baby steps and giant leaps. That NASA YouTube live stream? The splashdown stream attracted more than 650,000 viewers and more than 22 million people watched the archived video. If we look only at the X accounts (formerly Twitter) of the 4 Artemis II astronauts (Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen), we are talking about almost 1.3 million followers.
At first glance, all this exposure can have considerable influence. That’s something that hasn’t changed since the days of the black-and-white broadcast of Apollo 11. Some pre-social media astronauts went from space travelers to influencers of the day: politicians. In total, five NASA astronauts have won federal elections, three have become U.S. senators, and two have been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. These include Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who flew on four space shuttle missions in the early 2000s and recently sparked some controversy during the 2028 presidential election.
It is not yet clear whether or not the crew of Artemis II will follow similar paths to widespread influence. But they certainly have more options in today’s media age. Their scientific and technological contributions to future Artemis missions to the Moon and to research into the ravages of spaceflight on the human body, among others, cannot be overstated. And now that they have returned to Earth after captivating the imagination of entire new generations, they could potentially inspire their considerable audience to exert any kind of influence, commercial, political, etc.
They continue to make the rounds in the media to talk about their historic achievement, as they should. Once the fervor has died down and the torch has been passed to the next cohort of space pioneers, the Artemis II space travelers will need to consider their next step in influence here on dry land.
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Main image: Georges Méliès’ 1902 film, The Journey to the Moon poster / Wikimedia Commons.
