I would guess that for a mythology to work, in the end you need easy-to-understand progress, movement, and an easily-identifiable cadre of heroes. Can't have a

I would guess that for a mythology to work, in the end you need easy-to-understand progress, movement, and an easily-identifiable cadre of heroes. Can't have a hero's journey without a hero or the journey. Just take a look at 'fictional mythology', as in 'stories and media': one or several folks take a long trip and fight a common foe. That's the kind of story you'd tell around a campfire in Europe, ca. 5000 BC, and that's the story you can tell in cinemas today. One guy sat down and thought really hard until he got an idea? Bo-ring. The Space Race fulfils that structure: You got your heroes cadre (astronauts), their journey (both figuratively in meticulous training and actual in the journey across space), a common foe (the deadly emptiness of space // the cosmonauts // the communists).