Organising images of futures-past: remembering the Apollo moon landings

Lewis Goodings, Steven D. Brown and Martin Parker

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2013, vol. 7, issue 3/4, 263-283

Abstract: Organisational memory studies (OMS) has begun to consider the ways in which organisations construct versions of their own history. These histories have a broader significance through the ways they resource and are contested within cultural memory. In this paper we discuss the way that the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) constituted both its own past and future significance through the remediation and premediation of key images of the Apollo space programme. Drawing on visitor feedback from an exhibition in the National Space Centre in the UK, we identify three distinct narratives through which personal recollections of the Apollo landings are given espoused historical significance - 'my generation', 'watching the landings' and 'remembering the future'. The images of the Apollo landings are a site of contestation where nostalgia for the supposed future that NASA sought to premediate is mixed with acknowledgement of the failure of that future to materialise.

Keywords: OMS; organisational memory studies; cultural memory; social remembering; remediation; premediation; NASA; National Aeronautical and Space Administration; thematic analysis; Apollo moon landings; Apollo space programme; National Space Centre; UK; United Kingdom; historical significance. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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