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Where did Nasa come from?

Nasa was was officially founded by Congress - the part of the US government which writes and brings in laws - on 1 October 1958.

It was created because the Americans wanted a dedicated space agency that would put them at the forefront of space exploration.

Its predecessor was a US government agency called the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (Naca), which would eventually become Nasa as we know it today.

Nasa stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is probably most well known for its ambitious missions into space, but it does a huge amount of work researching and developing new planes to be flown here on Earth too.

Doug Millard, a space expert from the Science Museum in London, explains: "Nasa is the biggest and most powerful space agency the world has even known, playing leading roles in all aspects of space exploration and especially human spaceflight and the robotic exploration of the Solar System."

History

NASA traces its roots to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Despite being the birthplace of aviation, by 1914 the United States recognized that it was far behind Europe in aviation capability. Determined to regain American leadership in aviation, the United States Congress created the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914 and established NACA in 1915 to foster aeronautical research and development. Over the next forty years, NACA would conduct aeronautical research in support of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and the civil aviation sector. After the end of World War II, NACA became interested in the possibilities of guided missiles and supersonic aircraft, developing and testing the Bell X-1 in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force. NACA's interest in space grew out of its rocketry program at the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division.

The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age and kicked off the Space Race. Despite NACA's early rocketry program, the responsibility for launching the first American satellite fell to the Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, whose operational issues ensured the Army Ballistic Missile Agency would launch Explorer 1, America's first satellite, on February 1, 1958.

The Eisenhower Administration decided to split the United States' military and civil spaceflight programs, which were organized together under the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency. NASA was established on July 29, 1958, with the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act and it began operations on October 1, 1958.

As the United States' premier aeronautics agency, NACA formed the core of NASA's new structure by reassigning 8,000 employees and three major research laboratories. NASA also proceeded to absorb the Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency under Wernher von Braun. This left NASA firmly as the United States' civil space lead and the Air Force as the military space lead.

Moon landing

Escalations in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union prompted President John F. Kennedy to charge NASA with landing an American on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s, and installed James E. Webb as NASA administrator to achieve this goal. Kennedy gave his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech the next year, on September 12, 1962 at Rice University, where he addressed the nation hoping to reinforce public support for the Apollo program.

Despite attacks on the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon from the former president Dwight Eisenhower and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, President Kennedy was able to protect NASA's growing budget, of which 50% went directly to human spaceflight and it was later estimated that, at its height, 5% of Americans worked on some aspect of the Apollo program . Mirroring the Department of Defense's program management concept using redundant systems in building the first intercontinental ballistic missiles, NASA requested the Air Force assign Major General Samuel C. Phillips to the space agency where he would serve as the director of the Apollo program. Development of the Saturn V rocket was led by Wernher von Braun and his team at the Marshall Space Flight Center, derived from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's original Saturn I. The Apollo spacecraft was designed and built by North American Aviation, while the Apollo Lunar Module was designed and built by Grumman .

To develop the spaceflight skills and equipment required for a lunar mission, NASA initiated Project Gemini. Using a modified Air Force Titan II launch vehicle, the Gemini capsule could hold two astronauts for flights of over two weeks. Gemini pioneered the use of fuel cells instead of batteries, and conducted the first American spacewalks and rendezvous operations.

The Ranger Program was started in the 1950s as a response to Soviet lunar exploration, however most missions ended in failure. The Lunar Orbiter program had greater success, mapping the surface in preparation for Apollo landings and measured Selenography, conducted meteoroid detection, and measured radiation levels. The Surveyor program conducted uncrewed lunar landings and takeoffs, as well as taking surface and regolith observations. Despite the setback caused by the Apollo 1 fire, which killed three astronauts, the program proceeded.

Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times on December 24 and 25, 1968, and then traveled safely back to Earth. The three Apollo 8 astronauts—Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to see the Earth as a globe in space, the first to witness an Earthrise, and the first to see and manually photograph the far side of the Moon.

The first lunar landing was conducted by Apollo 11. Commanded by Neil Armstrong with astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, Apollo 11 was one of the most significant missions in NASA's history, marking the end of the Space Race when the Soviet Union gave up its lunar ambitions. As the first human to step on the surface of the Moon, Neil Armstrong uttered the now famous words:

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

NASA would conduct six total lunar landings as part of the Apollo program, with Apollo 17 concluding the program in 1972.

Launch of Friendship 7, NASA's first orbital flight, February 20, 1962