CHAPTER ONE Space Race Before Congress and the president created NASA in 1958 an organization called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics NACA led the country's efforts in the skies NACA was established in 1915 as a cooperative effort among industry universities the military and the federal government The early years of aviation involved many accidents Despite its small staff of 12 volunteers and budget of only 5 000 NACA embarked on a mission to research flight problems and devise solutions to help aviation progress By the 1920s NACA had developed an impressive collection of in house wind tunnels engine test stands and flight test facilities In the 1930s NACA scientists encouraged to pursue their own research developed such break throughs as airfoil and cowling technology which allowed aircraft to be more streamlined and to use less fuel NACA also was responsible for designing the first aircraft to break the sound barrier On October 14 1947 U S Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager lifted off from Muroc Army Air Field now Edwards Air Force Base in Wind tunnels in such testing sites as Langley Research Center were inherited from NACA established
SPACE RACE California and flew the X 1 research plane faster air and space research and development Texas than the speed of sound senator Lyndon B Johnson made a speech to After World War II the U S and Soviet Congress two weeks after the Sputnik launch Union entered the Cold War During this peri In it he called for a congressional review of the od space exploration emerged as a major area of American space effort Johnson believed it was competition between the two nations From 1955 critical that the U S should focus new energy on to 1972 the Space Race was on After U S presi developing its space exploration efforts both to dent Dwight D Eisenhower approved a plan to advance technology and to help the U S become put a data gathering satellite in Earth orbit by a leader in the Space Race December 31 1958 the Soviets announced their In just three months the U S responded to intention to launch a satellite too Sputnik by launching its first satellite Explorer History was made on October 4 1957 when 1 On January 31 1958 Explorer began orbiting the Soviet Union reached space before the U S Earth The scientific instruments on board by successfully launching Sputnik 1 the world's the satellite soon gave evidence of radiation first artificial satellite Americans feared that this belts encircling the planet Plans were already satellite meant that the capability of launching underway to launch more satellites Congress ballistic missiles carrying nuclear weapons was decided that any long term exploratory proj not far behind Sputnik also signaled a technolog ects should probably be handled by a single ical gap between the U S and the Soviet Union independent agency and it prompted Americans to call for more On July 29 1958 the National Aeronautics money to be spent on efforts to reach space and Space Act combined NACA with other Programs were organized to educate people government agencies to create NASA which about technical and scientific advancements and officially began operations on October 1 NASA's new federal agencies were established to manage mission was to expand human knowledge of In just three months the U S responded to Sputnik by launching Explorer
KOO OG From the late 1950s to today the Explorers sat ellite program has focused on gathering various forms of scientific
