An independent agency of the US Government responsible for the civil space programme. It was established in 1958 by President Eisenhower based on the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Its headquarters is in Washington DC, where programme plans originate. Individual projects are implemented at different field centres: Ames Research Center (Mountain View, CA) for astrobiology and information systems; Dryden Flight Research Center (Edwards, CA) for aeronautic flight research; Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, MD) for astronomy and Earth sciences; Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA) for Solar System exploration; Johnson Space Center (Houston, TX) for manned missions; Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral, FL) for launch operations; Langley Research Center (Norfolk, VA) for aeronautics; Glenn (formerly Lewis) Research Center (Cleveland, OH) for space technologies; and Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville, AL) for launch vehicles and space science.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an agency of the United States Government, responsible for that nation's public space program. Established on July 29, 1958 by the National Aeronautics and Space Act , its annual funding amounts to slightly more than $16 billion. In addition to the space program, it is also responsible for long-term civilian and military aerospace research. NASA is widely regarded as being in the forefront of space agencies worldwide.
History
Space race
Following the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first man-made satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. Several months of debate produced agreement that a new federal agency was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act or NASA, establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA consisted mainly of the four laboratories and some 80 employees of the government's 46-year-old research agency for aeronautics, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). He is today regarded as the father of the United States space program.
NASA's earliest programs involved research into human spaceflight and were conducted under the pressure of the competition between the USA and the USSR (the Space Race) that existed during the Cold War. The Mercury program, initiated in 1958, started NASA down the path of human space exploration with missions designed to discover simply if man could survive in space. Lindell, COL, USAF) were selected/requested to provide assistance to the NASA Space Task Group through coordination with the existing U.S. military research and defense contracting infrastructure, and technical assistance resulting from experimental aircraft (and the associated military test pilot pool) development in the 1950s. became the first American in space when he piloted Freedom 7 on a 15-minute suborbital flight.
Once the Mercury project proved that human spaceflight was possible, project Gemini was launched to conduct experiments and work out issues relating to a moon mission. Nine other missions followed, showing that long-duration human space flight was possible, proving that rendezvous and docking with another vehicle in space was possible, and gathering medical data on the effects of weightlessness on human beings.
Apollo program
The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth.
Other early missions
Although the vast majority of NASA's budget has been spent on human spaceflight, there have been many robotic missions instigated by the space agency. Although the Cold War would last many more years, this was a critical point in NASA's history and much of the international co-operation in space exploration that exists today has its genesis with this mission. America's first space station, Skylab, occupied NASA from the end of Apollo until the late 1970s.
Shuttle era
The space shuttle became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Planned to be a frequently launchable and mostly reusable vehicle, four space shuttles were built by 1985.
The shuttle was not all good news for NASA — flights were much more expensive than initially projected, and even after the 1986 Challenger disaster highlighted the risks of space flight, the public again lost interest as missions appeared to become mundane. Work began on Space Station Freedom as a focus for the manned space program but within NASA there was argument that these projects came at the expense of more inspiring unmanned missions such as the Voyager probes.
Nonetheless, the shuttle has been used to launch milestone projects like the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The HST is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, and its success has paved the way for greater collaboration between the agencies.
In 1995 Russian-American interaction would again be achieved as the Shuttle-Mir missions began, and once more a Russian craft (this time a full-fledged space station) docked with an American vehicle. This cooperation continues to the present day, with Russia and America the two biggest partners in the largest space station ever built – the International Space Station (ISS). The strength of their cooperation on this project was even more evident when NASA began relying on Russian launch vehicles to service the ISS following the 2003 Columbia disaster, which grounded the shuttle fleet for well over two years.
Costing over one hundred billion dollars, it has been difficult at times for NASA to justify the ISS. The population at large have historically been hard to impress with details of scientific experiments in space, preferring news of grand projects to exotic locations.
During much of the 1990s, NASA was faced with shrinking annual budgets due to Congressional belt-tightening in Washington, DC.
NASA's shuttle program has made 114 successful launches yet.
NASA's future
Utilizing the 30 years of robotic, interplanetary exploration experience from the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), NASA's current investigations include in-depth surveys of Mars. With NASA funding, JPL expects to continue to explore the Red Planet with more spacecraft such as Phoenix and the Mars Science Laboratory later this decade.
Other notable JPL-NASA missions include the Cassini probe, launched in 1997 and in orbit around Saturn since mid-2004, investigating Saturn and its inner satellites; With over twenty years in the making, Cassini-Huygens demonstrates the importance of international cooperation between JPL-NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, which killed the crew of six Americans and one Israeli, caused a 29-month hiatus in space shuttle flights and triggered a serious re-examination of NASA's priorities. The U.S. government, various scientists, and the public all considered the future of the space program. Bush announced a new plan for NASA's future, dubbed the Vision for Space Exploration. The space shuttle will be retired in 2010 and Orion will replace it by 2014, capable of both docking with the ISS and leaving the Earth's orbit. Although the plan initially met with skepticism from Congress, in late 2004 Congress agreed to provide start-up funds for the first year's worth of the new space vision.
Hoping to spur innovation from the private sector, NASA established a series of Centennial Challenges, technology prizes for non-government teams, in 2004. The Challenges include tasks that will be useful for implementing the Vision for Space Exploration, such as building more efficient astronaut gloves.
Criticisms
Some commentators, such as Mark Wade, note that NASA has suffered from a 'stop-start' approach to its human spaceflight programs. While the 1986 loss was mitigated by building Space Shuttle Endeavour from replacement parts, NASA does not plan to build another shuttle to replace the second loss. Since the Columbia Shuttle accident, the permanent space station crew has comprised one Russian and one American, on board for six months at a time, meaning European and Japanese astronauts could not stay for longer missions. Other nations that have invested heavily in the space station's construction, such as the members of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), have expressed concern over the completion of the ISS.
NASA spaceflight missions
NASA has had many successful space missions and programs, including over 100 manned missions. The Space Shuttle Program has also been a huge success with, despite the loss of two of the Space Shuttles, Challenger and Columbia which resulted in the deaths of their entire crews. The Space Shuttles were able to dock with the space station Mir while it was operational, and are now able to dock with the International Space Station - a joint project of many space agencies. NASA's future plans for space exploration are with the Project Constellation.
There have been many unmanned NASA space missions as well, including at least one that visited each of the other 7 planets in our solar system, and four missions (Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2) that have left our solar system.
List of NASA administrators
T. Griffin (2005–)Field installations
NASA's headquarters are located in Washington, DC.
NASA's Shared Services center is located on the grounds of the John C. Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
NASA has field and research installations listed below by application. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland, Ohio Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York City
Test facilities
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland Independent Verification and Validation Facility, Fairmont, West Virginia Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia John C. Stennis Space Center, near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VirginiaConstruction and launch facilities
George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, Louisiana White Sands Test Facility, Las Cruces, New MexicoDeep Space Network
Deep Space Network (DSN) stations
Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, Barstow, California Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, Madrid, Spain Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, Canberra, Australian Capital TerritoryTourism and museum facilities
United States Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, AlabamaAircraft
Throughout its history, NASA has used several different types of aircraft on a permanent, semi-permanent, or short-term basis. Included among these are:
F-8 Crusader, Several F-8Cs were used by NASA in the early 1970s to test such features as Digital Fly-By-Wire Control System and supercritical wings, which have become standard on modern high performance military aircraft. F-16 Fighting Falcon, During the late 1980's and early 1990's 2 prototypes of the F-16XL, designed as a competitor to the F-15E Strike Eagle in the USAF's Enhanced Tactical Fighter program, were taken in hand by NASA for aeronautical research. P-3 Orion, NASA currently uses the P-3 as an earth-science suborbital research platform and is located at Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. KC-135 Stratotanker, Two ex-USAF KC-135's were used by NASA from 1973 to 2004 for the Reduced Gravity Research Program, where potential astronauts are exposed to simulated near-weightlessness. C-9 Skytrain II, One ex-USN C-9B was taken in hand in 2004 to replace the famous KC-135s used in NASA's Reduced Gravity Research Program. Boeing 747, Two 747's, one registered N905NA (which is a 747-100 model that was acquired from American Airlines in 1974) and a second registered N911NA (a 747-100SR model purchased from Japan Airlines in 1988) are currently used by NASA as Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. It is often regarded as a direct predecessor to the Space Shuttle. Lockheed SR-71,Awards and decorations
NASA presently bestows a number of medals and decorations to astronauts and other NASA personnel. The highest award is the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, which has been award to 28 individuals (17 posthumously), and is said to recognize "any astronaut who in the performance of his duties has distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious efforts and contributions to the welfare of the Nation and mankind."
The second highest NASA award is the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, which may be presented to any member of the federal government, including both military astronauts and civilian employees.
Related legislation
1958 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration PL 85-568 (passed on July 29) 1961 – Apollo mission funding PL 87-98 A 1970 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research and Development Act PL 91-119 1984 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 98-361 1988 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 100-685 NASA Budget 1958–2005 in 1996 Constant Year DollarsGeneral
NASA Home Page Skip the Splash Page and go Directly to NASA Home Page NASA Television NASAcast, NASA's Podcasting NASA Photos NASA Watch, an agency watchdog site NASA Spaceflight, another agency watchdog siteFurther research
NASA History Series Publications NASA Historical Data Books (SP-4012) Read Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding NASA Research in NASA History: A Guide to the NASA History Program (large PDF – over 1,012 kb) NTRS: NASA Technical Reports Server Eventscope NASA for Kids v • d • e National space programmesArgentina • Brazil • Canada • Europe (ESA) • France • Germany • Indonesia • Israel • Italy • Japan • India • South Korea • Malaysia • Republic of China (Taiwan) • Pakistan • Spain • Ukraine
Human spaceflight
People's Republic of China • Russia • United States
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