After the B-movie boom of the 1950s, the production of science fiction films in America rapidly decreased during the early 1960s. Following the end of World War II, the paranoia associated with the earlier Cold War years began to give way to a sense of hot competition between the Russian and American superpowers in the 1960s. The so-called Space Race was central to this shift, becoming a major national and international preoccupation. This was the ‘big science story’ of the 1960s, right through to Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon in 1969, and the NASA publicity/PR machine made sure that the public were supplied with a steady flow of visual images and media stories in the promotion of their work. For instance, the NASA Art Program began in 1962 and, in the years following, various artists were commissioned to create impressive images of rockets and colourful, epic representations of the planets, which were circulated in conjunction with media reports. Alongside this there were televised reports and official photographs of the missions undertaken. As early as 1962 close-up photographs of the moon were taken from Ranger 4 and in 1964 television pictures of Mars (recorded from Mariner 4) were available. The exploration of space was truly a spectacular media event.