The organization grew slowly but surely over the years.

The committee initially consisted of 12 members, all of which were unpaid. It was following in the footsteps of similar organizations which were established by France, Germany, and Britain.Īccording to the Congressional resolution which established the committee, “…It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution. It was established during the first world war as an emergency measure, even though the US had not entered the war at this point. This group was actually created in 1915 during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. The first “A” in NASA stands for aeronautics, and the first government organization to promote aeronautical research was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. While NASA as an official government entity dates back to 1958, the predecessor organization actually dates back much earlier. Learn more about the history of NASA and how it came to be on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. It has a past that goes back far earlier than most people realize. Yet this agency wasn’t created out of nothing. NASA has achieved some of the most incredible accomplishments in human history and also has suffered some incredible failures. In 1958 the United States government created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA. On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts-Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin Jr.-realized President Kennedy's dream.Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Amazon | Player.FM | TuneIn Castbox | Stitcher | Podcast Republic | RSS | Patreon Its goal was to land humans on the Moon and assure their safe return to Earth. Its goals were to perfect the entry and re-entry maneuvers of a spacecraft and conduct further tests on how individuals are affected by long periods of space travel. The Apollo Program followed Project Gemini. Project Gemini was the second NASA spaceflight program. To the MoonĪs space exploration continued through the 1960s, the United States was on its way to the Moon. Each mission lasted longer than the one before and gathered more data. By May 1963, astronauts Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra Jr., and L. Medical researchers, engineers, test pilots, machinists, factory workers, businessmen, and industrialists from across the country worked together to achieve this goal. Glenn's success helped inspire the great army of people working to reach the Moon. After more than four hours in space, having circled the earth three times, Glenn piloted the Friendship 7 back into the atmosphere and landed in the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda. Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Friendship 7 capsule carrying Glenn reached a maximum altitude of 162 miles and an orbital velocity of 17,500 miles per hour. became the first American to orbit Earth. Within a year, however, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom became the first two Americans to travel into space. Skeptics questioned the ability of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to meet the president's timetable. On May 25, 1961, he stood before Congress to deliver a special message on 'urgent national needs.' He asked for an additional $7 billion to $9 billion over the next five years for the space program, proclaiming that 'this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth.' President Kennedy settled upon this dramatic goal as a means of focusing and mobilizing the nation's lagging space efforts. President Kennedy understood the need to restore America's confidence and intended not merely to match the Soviets, but surpass them. The United States, it seemed, was still falling behind. Then, in 1961, the nation suffered another shock when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. Project Mercury's goals were to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth, investigate the ability of astronauts to function in space, and recover astronauts and spacecraft safely. Seven men were selected to take part in the program: Scott Carpenter, Leroy Gordon Cooper, John Glenn Jr., Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr., and Donald 'Deke' Slayton. The Soviets' triumph jarred the American people and sparked a vigorous response in the federal government to make sure the United States did not fall behind its Communist rival.Ī new space program, Project Mercury, was initiated two years later, during President Dwight D. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik, and the space race was on.

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