The Apollo 11 moon landing is arguably Man's greatest achievement.

It might never have happened if not for a remarkable partnership between two extraordinary men: Walt Disney and Wernher Von Braun 🧵

They came from different worlds: Walt's childhood was spent on a farm in Missouri, Wernher was born to a politically powerful German family. At a young age, they both dedicated themselves to their life's work. For Walt, animation. For Wernher, rocketry.

In 1930, aged just 18, Von Braun told a prominent rocket scientist “You know, I plan on traveling to the moon at some time."

After 1934, all rocketry research in Germany was subsumed into the military. So Von Braun went to work for the state, and eventually helped create the V-2 rocket. By 1944, German rocket tech was far superior to anything else in the world.

Braun had qualms about building such weaponry. His mind was truly on exploration, not on war. “I aim for the stars, but I keep hitting London”, Braun is said to have wistfully remarked.

After the war, Braun made his way to the US where he continued development work on spacecraft as the world’s foremost rocket scientist. He knew that broad public support was vital to these efforts, and looked for opportunities to inspire the masses.

Braun was trying to build rockets, but at that time Disney was trying to build Disneyland. He had inked a pioneering deal with ABC—the TV network would pay for half of the park if Walt agreed to make exclusive content for the network.

Introduced by Walt's right-hand man Ward Kimball, Walt and Wernher became fast friends and saw an opportunity: the Disneyland TV show could be used to excite the American public with visions of space flight. And in 1955, the special “Man in Space” aired on ABC.

It featured detailed scientific information about space flight, Von Braun himself explaining how multi-stage rockets work with detailed models, and concluded with a short animated film envisioning man’s first flight to space.

Walt was a master communicator, and he had an amazing ability to connect with audiences of all ages. 42 million people watched “Man in Space”, a stunning figure for 1955. ABC execs must have been over the moon.

A second special, “Man and the Moon” was aired later in ‘55. It featured WVB’s space station models and a short live action film about a future moon mission. WVB personally oversaw every technical detail of the TV shows.

If you watch these shows today (and you should, they’re amazing), they may seem a bit silly to modern eyes. But they really were at the cutting edge. Representatives of the Soviet space program even asked for copies of the films. That’s how relevant
they were at the time.

The shows inspired an attraction in Tomorrowland at Disneyland, “Rocket to the Moon”, that was a primitive space flight simulation. It was incredibly popular with an American public that dreamed of conquering space.

Winning over that public was vital. The Apollo program was widely criticized as wasteful government spending. Under LBJ, welfare programs were vastly expanded in the so-called “Great Society” initiative. Priorities were shifting. The optimistic futurism of the 50s was fading.

You can sustain moon-sized people on welfare, or you can colonize the moon. You can’t really do both; resources are finite. The Von Braun/Disney specials were instrumental in capturing the public imagination and instilling the deep grassroots support needed to go to the moon.

One oft overlooked aspect of the Apollo missions is how youthful the staff was. The average age of the men in the Apollo 11 control room was only 26. NASA legend Gene Kranz directed the moon mission in his mid-30’s.

A 26 year old in 1969 would have been 12 when Disney’s space specials were first aired. When you realize this fact, you begin to see how much influence Disney’s work had on the space race.

How many of these young men watched Disney’s specials? How many of them had their heads filled with dreams of rockets and space and moon landings at a young age because Walt and Wernher turned their eyes towards the stars?

The word “propaganda” has a negative connotation. But can’t media propagandize for good? Can’t it inspire young minds to do great things? Disney definitely thought so, and proved it with his highly influential television masterpieces.

The quality of children’s programming in our time is a disgrace. We must watch very carefully the content our children consume. We must make sure it inspires them to achieve and explore. Our future depends on it.

Yes, children’s programming in 1955 was literally Wernher Von Braun explaining the basics of multi-stage rockets.

This was prime time programming on ABC. We have fallen far as a country.

Disney and WVB made one final TV special in 1957, which outlined a proposed mission to Mars. That plan has not yet been realized. One day man will walk on Mars and the vision of two dreamers, Walt and Wernher, will finally be fulfilled.

These pictures are two of my favorites. Two men standing amidst their creations, their earthly bodies dwarfed by the scale of their accomplishments.

They left those things for us, and they left great legacies. May they inspire us to achieve great things of our own.