In the 20th Century, Pillsbury Made Astronaut Energy Snacks, Playtex Made Space Suits

At your grocers next to the instant breakfast section. Space food sticks, the energy snack from US Aerospace Research and Pillsbury. – YouTube video

Dominant Social Theme: NASA's space program in the 20th century was a tremendous advancement for US industry, and snack food in particular.

Free-Market Analysis: One of the little commented upon aspects of 20th century American technology is how the US "can-do" spirit permeated not only NASA's space program but also the industries surrounding it.

Regardless of what one thinks of the NASA space program and the "conspiracy theories" that swirl around it, these videos are extraordinary testimony to how thoroughly the meme of space flight penetrated the popular culture.

They are living memes from a bygone era. Generally, YouTube is a treasure trove of videos of the 1950s to 1970s that show us this can-do spirit from the standpoint of informative promotions and commercials.

We recently posted a video featuring children from the mid-20th century singing the "duck and cover" song designed to teach them how to protect themselves from nuclear explosions.

You can see that video here: "Atomic Cafe – Duck and Cover."

We also commented on NASA's incompetent attempts at combating those who do not believe the official story about NASA voyage to the moon.

Up to 25 percent of certain technologically adept populations are skeptical of NASA explanations. This presents us with a massive public relations failure on the part of a multi-billion dollar US agency with enormous scientific support based partially on the grants and assignments it hands out.

You can see our latest NASA story here:

What is the Real Legacy of NASA after Armstrong's Death?

Tlmes were much simpler 50 years ago, as you'll see in these videos. The Internet had not been invented yet and NASA's astounding public relations incompetence hadn't yet been exposed. Thus, the dominant social theme of America's dominance when it came to this sort of world-beating technology was as yet unchallenged.

The first video is a TV commercial for Pillsbury energy bars that were apparently developed in cooperation with US Aerospace Research. The second is a Tang commercial.

Tang, Wikipedia tells us, is a fruit-flavored, powdered drink created by General Foods Corporation. "Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight, and subsequent Gemini missions."

Because perceptions of Tang are married to the US 20th century moon mission, it is assumed that Tang was invented in conjunction with NASA. It was not. Teflon and Velcro are two other products closely associated in people's minds with the space program.

Another little-known fact is that Playtex created the NASA space suit.

Here from the LA Review of Books, in an article describing Playtex's "couture-level sewing skills" and entitled "Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo" is an explanation of how the Playtex-NASA connection came about:

ILC's team [International Latex Corporation, a division of Playtex] ... manages to convince NASA to let them enter their "test suit" in a closed, invitation-only competitive bid at their own expense. They spend six weeks working around the clock—at times breaking into their own offices to work 24-hour shifts—to arrive at a suit solution that starkly outperforms the two invited competitors. In open, direct competition with larger, more moneyed companies, ILC manages to produce a superior space suit by drawing on the craft-culture handiwork and expertise of seamstresses, rather than on the hard-line culture of engineering.

Two clips featuring Tang and Pillsbury's energy snacks follow.

The Tang snack makes mention of moon rocks. NASA still apparently has no idea of how a petrified rock ended up in a Dutch moon-rock collection – though there are conflicting reports recently that the exhibited collection was not the real collection (which was secreted away because of potential deadly moon dust).

Here's a link to a video on how NASA retrieved a moon rock recently from an elderly woman who didn't realize holding such an artifact was a federal crime. NASA apparently doesn't want any of these rocks in the public domain. ("NASA Robs and Scares the Piss Out of Senior Citizen" at LiveLink.com.)

(Video from Love2Register2's YouTube user channel.)