The work done by the NACA nuts was hidden behind the more public operations of the military services and commercial aircraft manufacturers. NASA was chartered “to provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities,” with all failures and tragedies of the endeavor laid bare to the citizenry and broadcast through the influential young medium of television. With the world watching, the new organization carrying the American banner into space would have to be “clean, technically perfect, and meritocratic, the bearer of a myth.”
