Aahana Swrup
‘Fly Me to the Moon‘ is a romantic comedy that unfolds against the backdrop of NASA’s moon landing. Scarlett Johansson embodies the role of Kelly Jones, a marketing specialist in charge of the PR for the Apollo 11 mission. After getting recruited for the job, Kelly takes the John F. Kennedy Space Center by storm, paving the path for her tumultuous relationship with launch director Cole Davis. However, along the way, her talents in marketing through factually ambiguous means inspire ideas for government agent Moe Berkus.
Consequently, Kelly finds herself in charge of Project Artemis—a backup plan to ensure the moon landing’s televised broadcast runs smoothly. In the film, Kelly Jones’ character casts a significant shadow on a historical event as the primary marketing agent involved in the Apollo 11 mission. As such, her involvement in the on-screen forging of the moon landing will raise some brows regarding her relations to reality.
Kelly Jones Seems to be a Fictionalized Counterpart of Julian Scheer
The base premise of ‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ which revolves around the employment of a marketer who creates the space for an authorized fake moon landing contingency plan, is not based on real events. Therefore, even though the film takes significant inspiration from the reality of the Apollo 11 mission, its partial fictionalization affects most of the prominent elements within the tale. For the same reason, the central character, Kelly Jones, becomes a fictional character with partial inspirations in real life. Julian Scheer, NASA’s assistant administrator for Public Affairs during the 60s and 70s, is the most notable real-life individual who inspired Kelly Jones’ character.
Scheer was a former reporter — recruited into NASA by the Kennedy Administration — whose work in NASA’s Public Affairs shaped the Agency’s policies and media relations for years to come. “He [Julian Scheer] understood the needs of the media and also the needs of the flight crews,” Neil Armstrong once said when speaking of him. “He was, in many cases, able to accommodate both.” Furthermore, Scheer was also instrumental in the discussions and arrangements surrounding the television coverage of the moon landing. Therefore, the points of connection utilized in employing him as a core inspiration for Kelly Jones remain evident.
“NASA’s public affairs really had to market the Moon to the American public. Keenan [Flynn] and Bill [Kirstein] initially based Kelly’s character on Julian [Scheer], and it evolved into marketing,” Rose Gilroy, who wrote the film’s screenplay, told The Credits by the Motion Picture Association. “At the time, it was hard for journalists to cover the space program since it was so complex. So, they brought Scheer in, who suggested broadcasting the Moon landing on live television. There was intense debate between him and the flight directors. Even though we took some liberties with how she [Kelly] sells the Moon, the original idea came from real life.”
Kelly Jones’ Significant Departure From Reality
Even though Julian Scheer serves as a point of reference for Kelly Jones’ character, the latter’s connections to him remain paper-thin. Most glaringly, where Kelly is a marketer, open to the occasional graying lie, Scheer was a reporter who worked with facts and truths. In the late 1950s, NASA established itself as an open program that would share data with the public, maintaining transparent and readily available communications about its missions. In order to do so, they hired ex-reporters for their Public Affairs Offices to ensure the flow and format of the information reaching the regular person retain accuracy while meeting the right demand.
According to reports, Scheer maintained attendance at launches at the Kennedy Space Center to gain firsthand knowledge required to facilitate media relations. Furthermore, he was a part of crucial decisions surrounding the moon landing and continued working at NASA for a few years after the Apollo 11 mission. Most importantly, he was never a part of any attempts to fake a moon landing broadcast—another entirely fictionalized concept confined to the film. As such, the differences between Scheer and Kelly remain notably crucial.
Bill Barry, ‘Fly Me to the Moon’s’ NASA consultant, emphasized another fabricated aspect of Kelly’s story in a conversation with Time Magazine. The NASA historian said, “[In real life] There was no special effort to sell the Apollo program—especially not one aimed at raising funds for the agency either directly or indirectly.” Thus, Kelly Jones’ character ultimately remains more fiction than fact.
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