65 Years of NASA

By Chelsea Natale, 2027

Published 10/7/2023

On July 29, 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law transforming the obsolete National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA achieved more in three years than NACA could in forty-three, as NASA launched the first American man into space in 1961. 65 years later, the space agency still exists with high hopes for the future. Today, we see NASA as the successful space agency who sent the first man to the Moon, but there is much more behind the famed program.

After Dwight Eisenhower signed the space agency into existence, the United States went into a space craze. With President John F. Kennedy’s push to land on the Moon before the Soviet Union during the Space Race of the 1960s, NASA was working full steam ahead. NASA achieved its first major milestone in 1961, when Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space through the Mercury program. His nine successful days in orbit allowed future programs at NASA to send more men into orbit around the Earth. NASA’s progress eventually culminated in its landmark achievement in 1969, when the Apollo 11 mission put the first man on the Moon. 

In recent years, NASA has started the Artemis program with hopes of sending men and women back to the Moon for permanent settlement. In 2025, the space agency hopes to launch Artemis 3, the spacecraft that will carry humankind to the Moon for the first time in decades. Meanwhile, there have been numerous unmanned missions to Mars, the most recent being the Perseverance rover in 2020. Others include twin rovers Spirit (2003-2009) and Opportunity (2003-2019), as well as the Curiosity rover, which launched in 2012 and is still operating today. NASA has done a lot more than explore the Moon and Mars. A perfect example of this is the Hubble Telescope, which was originally a failure but turned to a resounding success. After it was first launched in 1990, the telescope sent grainy, poor-quality pictures of far-off stars; however, after just one repair three years later, Hubble was able to take some of the most iconic photos of space, saving the multigenerational dream of seeing into the corners of the galaxy. Around the same time, NASA launched the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts into the depths of space to be potentially found by aliens. NASA hopes to maintain contact with the crafts through the Deep Space Network until sometime in the 2030s.

NASA’s major achievements overshadow a darker, more tragic side to NASA’s space exploration history. In 1967, the Apollo 1 rocket caught fire, killing all three astronauts inside. More recent events include the explosion of the Challenger in 1986 only 73 seconds after liftoff, as well as the Colombia incident in 2003, in which the rocket burned up upon reentry into the atmosphere. Perhaps one of the most infamous disasters to strike NASA was Apollo 13. While en route to the Moon, the rocket’s oxygen tank exploded, causing a life-or-death situation for the three astronauts inside. Ironically, the incident was not completely harmful to NASA’s legacy. The disaster caused the American public, which was steadily losing interest in the space program, to tune in to see what would happen to astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigret. After almost six anxious days, Americans everywhere cheered and celebrated when NASA managed to return all astronauts home safely. Years later, a movie named after the famed mission would be made starring Tom Hanks.

Tom Hanks’ Apollo 13 movie was only the beginning of NASA’s cultural impact. In 2016, Americans rushed to theaters to see “Hidden Figures”, an influential movie about three black women overcoming racism at NASA. Today, many remember Katherine Johnson (1918-2020) , Dorothy Vaughan (1910-2008), and Mary Jackson (1921-2005) as trailblazers who broke through barriers in science.

From launching a man into orbit in 1961 to operating rovers on Mars in 2023, NASA has learned from its achievements and tragedies to make the future of space travel safer and brighter. With so much under its belt, it is not hard to see why many turn to the agency for hope for the future of space exploration.