The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; ) is an independent agency of the U.S. Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency was to have a distinctly civilian orientation, encouraging peaceful applications in space science. Since its establishment, most US space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System, and Commercial Crew vehicles.
Introduction
NASA
NASA | Introduction
1958 In 1958 1958 1958.
large objects ( 10 m) in space originating from a region between jupiter and mars
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Asteroid belt
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can you explain its structure?
user
Asteroids become darker and redder with age due to space weathering. Composition is calculated from three primary sources: albedo, surface spectrum, and density.
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how is it classified into groups?
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Orbital classification; Quasi-satellites and horseshoe objects ; Spectral classification
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can you name a belt with similar properties?
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Kuiper belt
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who discovered this?
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David Jewitt
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have there been any missions conducted to study it?
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Yes - 'New Horizons' was launched on January 19, 2006 -the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt
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who launched it?
user
NASA
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what is this body?
user
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; ) is an independent agency of the U.S. Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research.
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when was it created?
user
NASA was created in 1958 from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), formed 1915) and other related organizations, as a result of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s, .
Creation of NASA | Introduction
On April 2, 1958 Eisenhower presented legislation to Congress to implement the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Congress responded by supplementing the creation of NASA, with an additional committee to be called the National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC). The NASC would include the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, and the administrator of NASA. Legislation was passed by Congress, and then signed by President Eisenhower on July 29, 1958. NASA began operations on October 1, 1958.
Cold War (1953–1962) | Creation of NASA
On March 5, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced his decision to create a new space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which would absorb NACA. Silverstein moved to Washington, D.C., where he became the head of the Office of Space Flight Programs. Silverstein selected Finger to head NASA's nuclear projects. Responsibility for the nuclear thermal rocket project, Project Rover, was officially transferred from the United States Air Force (USAF) to NASA on October 1, 1958, the day NASA officially became operational and assumed responsibility for the US civilian space program. On August 29, 1960, NASA created the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) to oversee Project Rover.
Harold Finger | NASA
From 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch an artificial satellite for the International Geophysical Year (1957–58). An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard. After the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first artificial satellite ("Sputnik 1") on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D.
Creation of NASA | Background
Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. On January 12, 1958, NACA organized a "Special Committee on Space Technology", headed by Guyford Stever. On January 14, 1958, NACA Director Hugh Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology" stating: While this new federal agency would conduct all non-military space activity, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to develop space technology for military application.
NASA | Creation
July 29 marks the beginning of the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), agency newly created by the United States to catch up with Soviet space technologies. It absorbs all research centers and staffs of the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), an organization founded in 1915.
Timeline of astronomy | 1958
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; ) is an independent agency of the U.S. Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency was to have a distinctly civilian orientation, encouraging peaceful applications in space science. Since its establishment, most US space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System, and Commercial Crew vehicles.
NASA | Introduction
The result was the National Aeronautics and Space Act passed in July 1958, which created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Eisenhower appointed T. Keith Glennan as NASA's first Administrator, with the last NACA Director Hugh Dryden serving as his Deputy.
Space policy of the United States | Eisenhower administration
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This damaged American confidence in its technological superiority, creating a wave of anxiety known as the Sputnik crisis. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the Space Race. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established on October 1, 1958, as a civilian agency to develop space technology. One of its first initiatives was announced on December 17, 1958. This was Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit, return him safely to the Earth, and evaluate his capabilities in space. While Glenn was on duty at Patuxent and in Washington, he read everything he could find about space.
John Glenn | Selection
The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 () is the United States federal statute that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Act, which followed close on the heels of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, was drafted by the United States House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration and on July 29, 1958 was signed by President Eisenhower. Prior to enactment, the responsibility for space exploration was deemed primarily a military venture, in line with the Soviet model that had launched the first orbital satellite. In large measure, the Act was prompted by the lack of response by a US military infrastructure that seemed incapable of keeping up the space race.
National Aeronautics and Space Act | Introduction
From late 1957 to early 1958, the already existing National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) began studying what a new non-military space agency would entail, as well as what its role might be, and assigned several committees to review the concept. On January 12, 1958, NACA organized a "Special Committee on Space Technology", headed by Guyford Stever. Stever's committee included consultation from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's large booster program, referred to as the Working Group on Vehicular Programs, headed by the World War II German scientist Wernher von Braun, brought to the US in Operation Paperclip. On January 14, 1958, NACA Director Hugh Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology" stating: Launched on January 31, 1958, Explorer 1, officially Satellite 1958 Alpha, became the U.S.'s first Earth satellite.
Creation of NASA | Transition of NACA to NASA
From 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch an artificial satellite for the International Geophysical Year (1957–58). An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard. After the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first artificial satellite ("Sputnik 1") on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D.
NASA | Creation
NASA is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958. Since that time, most U.S. space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System and Commercial Crew vehicles.
NASA Authorization Act of 2014 | Background
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This shattered Americans confidence in their technological superiority, creating a wave of anxiety known as the Sputnik crisis. Among his responses, President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the Space Race. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established on October 1, 1958, as a civilian agency to develop space technology. One of its first initiatives was Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit, evaluate his capabilities in space, and return him safely to the Earth. The first astronauts intake was drawn from the ranks of military test pilots.
Scott Carpenter | Mercury Seven
On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1. This event began the Sputnik crisis, a "wave of near-hysteria" among a surprised American public. In response, the U.S. government increased funding for the National Science Foundation, and in 1958, created both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1972. On 4 June 1958, two days after legislation creating NASA was introduced, Detlev W. Bronk, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences, met with the heads of these three agencies to create a new advisory body, the Space Science Board, to provide advice for the expansion of space research and to make sure that funding of fundamental science would be properly emphasized.
Bruno Rossi | Space Plasma Research
In reaction to the launch of the Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union, the President's Science Advisory Committee advised President Dwight D. Eisenhower to convert National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics into a new organization that would be more progressive in the United States' efforts for space exploration and research. This organization was to be named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This agency would effectively shift the control of space research and travel from the military into the hands of NASA, which was to be a civilian-government administration. NASA was to be in charge of all non-military space activity, while another organization ( DARPA ) was to be responsible for space travel and technology intended for military use.
Cold War (1953–1962) | Creation of NASA
Congress creates NASA with the National Aeronautics and Space Act The NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory was renamed NASA Ames Research Center and became a NASA field center.
Timeline of Ames Research Center | 1958
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This shattered American confidence in its technological superiority, creating a wave of anxiety known as the Sputnik crisis. Among his responses, President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the Space Race. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established on October 1, 1958, as a civilian agency to develop space technology. One of its first initiatives was publicly announced on December 17, 1958. This was Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit, return him safely to the Earth, and evaluate his capabilities in space.
Alan Shepard | Mercury Seven
In the wake of the Soviet Sputnik program in the late 1950s, Congress created the Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration in 1958, chaired by majority leader John William McCormack. This select committee drafted the National Aeronautics and Space Act that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). A staff report of the committee, the "Space Handbook: Astronautics and its Applications", provided non-technical information about spaceflight to U.S. policy makers. The committee also chartered the permanent House Committee on Science and Astronautics, which officially began on January 3, 1959, and was the first new standing committee established in the House since 1946.
United States House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology | History
MISS encountered technical challenges, which in turn caused funding difficulties. This generated conflict with the two agencies that should have been supporting it, NACA and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The core of the problem was the USAF's inability to articulate a clear military purpose for MISS. Meanwhile, in response to the Sputnik crisis, the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, decided to create a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which would absorb NACA and be responsible for the overall direction of the American space program. In September 1958, the USAF agreed to transfer responsibility for MISS to NASA, which was established on October 1, 1958.
Mercury Seven | Background
In 1958 the newly formed Advanced Research Projects Agency assumed control over all military space programs, but this centralization was short lived and gave control back to the services in September 1959. The creation of NASA in 1958 significantly hampered the Army and Navy's space programs, absorbing the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Navy's Project Vanguard and Minitrack satellite tracking network, but only absorbed the Air Force's Man in Space Soonest program, merging it with Project Mercury. Development of Air Force space systems continued with the Missile Defense Alarm System (MIDAS) and Strategic Air Command's SAMOS reconnaissance satellites, as well as the Thor, Atlas, and Titan space launch vehicles.
United States Space Force | Early military space program (1945–1982)
It is currently used for rocket testing by over 30 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies. It contains the NASA Shared Services Center. Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. Created as the Manned Spacecraft Center on November 1, 1961, the facility consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed in 1962–1963 on 1,620 acres (656 ha) of land donated by Rice University in Houston, Texas. The center grew out of the Space Task Group formed soon after the creation of NASA to co-ordinate the US human spaceflight program.
NASA facilities | Built by NASA
She expressed her concerns to her husband about the commute to and from work each day. Finley worked for a year with Convair until she pursued a new opportunity of which her husband suggested. In 1958, Susan Finley took a position at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, as a computer. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, had officially formed in July of 1958. This was a response to the National Aeronautics and Space Act. This act was put into action shortly after the Soviet Union launched their satellite, Sputnik. Prior to the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, all space exploration was deemed by the country, the military's responsibility.
Susan G. Finley | Career
George H.W. Bush created the National Space Council by Executive Order 12675. The Council was chaired by Vice President Dan Quayle and included the following members:
National Space Council | 1989–1993
Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency mainly based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was also created at this time to develop space technology for military application.
Creation of NASA | Background
military. The new agency's first major project was the Corona satellite, which was designed to replace the U-2 spy plane as a source of photographic evidence. On July 29, 1958, he signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established NASA as a civilian space agency. NASA took over the space technology research started by DARPA, as well as the air force's manned satellite program, Man In Space Soonest, which was renamed as Project Mercury. The project's first seven astronauts were announced on April 9, 1959.
Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower | Space program and education
In 1958, NASA formed an engineering group, the Space Task Group, to manage their human spaceflight programs under the direction of Robert Gilruth. Their earliest programs were conducted under the pressure of the Cold War competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. NASA inherited the US Air Force's Man in Space Soonest program, which considered many crewed spacecraft designs ranging from rocket planes like the X-15, to small ballistic space capsules. By 1958, the space plane concepts were eliminated in favor of the ballistic capsule, and NASA renamed it Project Mercury. The first seven astronauts were selected among candidates from the Navy, Air Force and Marine test pilot programs.
NASA | Project Mercury (1958–1963)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Historical Advisory Committee was established in 1964.
NASA Historical Advisory Committee | Introduction
Named the Launch Operations Center at its creation on July 1, 1962, it was renamed in honor of the late U.S. president on November 29, 1963, and has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program from three pads at Cape Canaveral. Its Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is the fourth-largest structure in the world by volume and was the largest when completed in 1965. A total of 13,100 people worked at the center as of 2011. Approximately 2,100 are employees of the federal government; the rest are contractors.
NASA | Built by NASA
The National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program was established in 1988 by the US Congress following the success of similar scholarship opportunities in the oceanic Sea Grant and agricultural Land Grant fields. The catch-all term Space Grant refers back to these previous federal programs. In 1989, the program was given over to NASA, which now administers it in the same way that NOAA administers Sea Grant. The first meeting of the National Council of Space Grant Directors took place from January 16, 1990 to January 19, 1990 at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia, Maryland, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, California.
National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program | History
The forerunner of the DSN was established in January 1958, when JPL, then under contract to the U.S. Army, deployed portable radio tracking stations in Nigeria, Singapore, and California to receive telemetry and plot the orbit of the Army-launched Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite. NASA was officially established on October 1, 1958, to consolidate the separately developing space-exploration programs of the US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force into one civilian organization. On December 3, 1958, JPL was transferred from the US Army to NASA and given responsibility for the design and execution of lunar and planetary exploration programs using remotely controlled spacecraft.
NASA Deep Space Network | History
A month later, the Soviets launched Sputnik 2, carrying a dog into orbit. Though the animal was not recovered alive, it was obvious their goal was human spaceflight. Unable to disclose details of military space projects, President Eisenhower ordered the creation of a civilian space agency in charge of civilian and scientific space exploration. Based on the federal research agency National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), it was named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It achieved its first goal, an American satellite in space, in 1958. The next goal was to put a man there. The limit of space (also known as the Kármán line) was defined at the time as a minimum altitude of , and the only way to reach it was by using rocket-powered boosters.
Project Mercury | Background
In 1957, the Russian flight of Sputnik 1 prompted the United States to accelerate its fledgling space program. On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established NASA and subsumed NACA within this newly created organization. Langley Research Center became a part of NASA, as did Langley employees such as Kraft. Even before NASA began its official existence in October, Kraft was invited by Gilruth to become a part of a new group that was working on the problems of putting a man into orbit. Without much hesitation, he accepted the offer.
Christopher C. Kraft Jr. | Flight operations
On January 14, 1958, Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology," which stated: On March 5, 1958, James Killian, who chaired the President's Science Advisory Committee, wrote a memorandum to the President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Titled, "Organization for Civil Space Programs," it encouraged the President to sanction the creation of NASA. He wrote that a civil space program should be based on a "strengthened and redesignated" NACA, indicating that NACA was a "going Federal research agency" with 7,500 employees and $300 million worth of facilities, which could expand its research program "with a minimum of delay."
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics | Special Committee on Space Technology
The lifting-body concept originated in the mid-1950s at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, Mountain View, California. By February 1962, a series of possible shapes had been developed, and R. Dale Reed was working to gain support for a research vehicle. The construction of the M2-F1 was a joint effort by Dryden and a local glider manufacturer, the Briegleb Glider Company. The budget was US$30,000. NASA craftsmen and engineers built the tubular steel interior frame. Its mahogany plywood shell was handmade by Gus Briegleb and company. Ernie Lowder, a NASA craftsman who had worked on Howard Hughes' H-4 Hercules ("Spruce Goose"), was assigned to help Briegleb.
NASA M2-F1 | Development
Atomic Energy Commission (nuclear and particle physics). That pattern would continue after 1957 when U.S. anxiety over the launch of Sputnik led to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (space science) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (defense-related research).
National Science Foundation | Criticism
On November 21, 1957, Hugh Dryden, NACA's director, established the Special Committee on Space Technology. The committee, also called the Stever Committee after its chairman, Guyford Stever, was a special steering committee that was formed with the mandate to coordinate various branches of the federal government, private companies as well as universities within the United States with NACA's objectives and also harness their expertise in order to develop a space program. Wernher von Braun, technical director at the US Army's Ballistic Missile Agency would have a Jupiter C rocket ready to launch a satellite in 1956, only to have it delayed, and the Soviets would launch "Sputnik 1" in October 1957.
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics | Special Committee on Space Technology
The installation was established in 1942 as part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and was later incorporated into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a laboratory for aircraft engine research. It was first named the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory after funding was approved in June 1940. It was renamed the Flight Propulsion Research Laboratory in 1947, the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (LFPL) in 1948 (after George W. Lewis, the head of NACA from 1919 to 1947), and the NASA Lewis Research Center in 1958. On March 1, 1999, the center was officially renamed the NASA John H.
Glenn Research Center | History
The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. In response to the Sputnik crisis, the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower created a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to oversee an American space program. The Space Task Group (STG) at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, created an American spaceflight project called Project Mercury, which aimed to send a person to space and then into orbit.
NASA Astronaut Group 3 | Background
The United States Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) was created in 1961 in response to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's desire to explore the use of nuclear thermal rockets created by Project Rover in NASA space exploration activities. Because Project Rover fell under the aegis of the Atomic Energy Commission, a way had to be found for NASA and the AEC to share a large, expensive, classified program; specifically, Los Alamos was developing technology for NASA to use. A "Program Office" was created in Washington, D.C. under the Executive branch of the U.S. Government. The Director of SNPO was H.
Space Nuclear Propulsion Office | Introduction
NASRDA was established on 1 August 2001 after preparation period since in 1998 by Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and the Nigerian government with a primary objective of establishing a "fundamental policy for the development of space science and technology" with an initial budget of $93 million. In May 2006, the new extended national space program was adopted.
National Space Research and Development Agency | History
On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 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, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). GSFC was established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. Its original charter was to perform five major functions on behalf of NASA: technology development and fabrication, planning, scientific research, technical operations, and project management. Even today, the Center is organized into several Directorates, each charged with one of these key functions.
History of the Goddard Space Flight Center | Origin of GSFC
Reference is made on page 27 & 40 in NASA publication "Brushless DC Motors", in 1975.
A. W. Haydon | National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
On August 29, 1960, NASA created the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) to oversee the joint NASA-AEC Project Rover, which aimed to develop a nuclear thermal rocket engine. Klein was appointed its deputy manager. Its staff were a combination of NASA and AEC employees whose responsibilities included "program and resource planning and evaluation, the justification and distribution of program resources, the definition and control of overall program requirements, monitoring and reporting of progress and problems to NASA and AEC management, and the preparation of testimony to Congress."
Milton Klein (engineer) | Biography
The ASO itself was made up of 20 people.
National Space Program | Structure
During his administration, NASA developed from a loose collection of research centers to a co-ordinated organization. Webb had a key role in creating the Manned Spacecraft Center, later the Johnson Space Center, in Houston. Despite the pressures to focus on the Apollo program, Webb ensured that NASA carried out a program of planetary exploration with the Mariner and Pioneer space programs.
James E. Webb | NASA
Development of solid core NTRs started in 1955 under the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as Project Rover, and ran to 1973. Work on a suitable reactor was conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Area 25 in the Nevada Test Site. Four basic designs came from this project: KIWI, Phoebus, Pewee and the Nuclear Furnace. Twenty individual engines were tested, with a total of over 17 hours of engine run time. When NASA was formed in 1958, it was given authority over all non-nuclear aspects of the Rover program. In order to enable cooperation with the AEC and keep classified information compartmentalized, the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) was formed at the same time.
Nuclear thermal rocket | United States
This was formed as NASA in late 1958. Some months later ABMA was handed over to NASA to become the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Army Ballistic Missile Agency | Army to NASA
Willy Ley predicted in 1960 that "In time, a number of such accidentally too-lucky shots will accumulate in space and will have to be removed when the era of manned space flight arrives". After the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) began compiling a database (the Space Object Catalog) of all known rocket launches and objects reaching orbit: satellites, protective shields and upper- and lower-stage booster rockets. NASA later published modified versions of the database in two-line element set, and during the early 1980s the CelesTrak bulletin board system re-published them. The trackers who fed the database were aware of other objects in orbit, many of which were the result of in-orbit explosions.
Kessler syndrome | NORAD, Gabbard and Kessler
John C. Stennis Space Center, originally the Mississippi Test Facility, is located in Hancock County, Mississippi, on the banks of the Pearl River at the Mississippi–Louisiana border. Commissioned on October 25, 1961, it was NASA's largest rocket engine test facility until the end of the Space Shuttle program. It is currently used for rocket testing by over 30 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies. It contains the NASA Shared Services Center. Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control. Created on November 1, 1961, the facility consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed in 1962–1963 on 1,620 acres (656 ha) of land donated by Rice University in Houston, Texas.
NASA | Built by NASA
The Explorer 1 payload consisted of the Iowa Cosmic Ray Instrument without a tape data recorder which was not modified in time to make it onto the satellite.
Creation of NASA | Transition of NACA to NASA
Kennedy. US was then embarked on their Apollo program to beat the Soviets to the Moon. NASA realising the gaping hole in upper atmospheric data invited countries bordering the Indian Ocean to join NASA in setting up rocket ranges and carrying out rocket-borne investigations of the Upper Atmosphere by establishing rocket ranges to obtain such data. Prof. Salam invited Tariq Mustafa a senior engineer of PAEC who was then at the Atomic Energy Laboratories of USAEC at Oakridge Tennessee, to join him in meetings at NASA headquarters in Washington DC. NASA invited Tariq to visit their Wallops Island rocket range in Virginia in order to draw up program and plans for establishing a rocket range in Pakistan.
Space &amp; Upper Atmosphere Research Commission | Creation
Made In Space was founded in August 2010 by Aaron Kemmer, Jason Dunn, Mike Chen, and Michael Snyder, during that year's Singularity University Graduate Studies Program. Their primary mission is to enable humanity to become a multi-planetary species. In the spring of 2011, Made In Space created their 3D Printing Lab at the NASA Ames Research Center on Moffett Field in Mountain View, California. That summer, they were awarded a sub-orbital flight for the printer through NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. From July through September 2011, the Made In Space team performed over 400 microgravity test parabolas on NASA's reduced gravity aircraft (the "Vomit Comet"), proving their 3D printing in microgravity.
Made In Space, Inc. | History
The center grew out of the Space Task Group formed soon after the creation of NASA to co-ordinate the US human spaceflight program. It is home to the United States Astronaut Corps and is responsible for training astronauts from the U.S. and its international partners, and includes the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center. The center was renamed in honor of the late U.S. president and Texas native Lyndon B. Johnson on February 19, 1973. John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), located west of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, is one of the best known NASA facilities.
NASA | Built by NASA
The U.S. Congress originally established Ames Research Center (Ames) in 1939 as the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory under the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Ames eventually grew to occupy approximately at Moffett Field adjacent to the Naval Air Station Moffett Field in Santa Clara County, California, in the center of the region that would, in the 1990s, become known worldwide as Silicon Valley. In 1958, Congress created NASA with the "National Aeronautics and Space Act" of 1958, 42 U.S.C. § 2451 "et seq". The Ames Aeronautical Laboratory was renamed Ames Research Center and became a NASA field center. Ames is nearing 70 years of age, which it calls "Seven Decades of Innovation," highlighted with major accomplishments in aeronautics and space.
NASA Research Park | Ames Research Center
The early history of United States space policy is linked to the US–Soviet Space Race of the 1960s. The National Aeronautics and Space Act creating NASA was passed in 1958, after the launch of the Soviet Sputnik 1 satellite. Thereafter, in response to the flight of Yuri Gagarin as the first man in space, Kennedy in 1961 committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. Although the costs of the Vietnam War and the programs of the Great Society forced cuts to NASA's budget as early as 1965, the first Moon landing occurred in 1969, early in Richard Nixon's presidency.
Space policy | History
The National Space Club (originally organized as the National Rocket Club) was founded on October 4, 1957, as a club to stimulate the exchange of ideas and information about rocketry and astronautics, and to promote the recognition of United States achievements in space.
National Space Club | Origin
Lasser and his writers, who included G. Edward Pendray, founded the American Interplanetary Society on April 4, 1930. They renamed it the American Rocket Society in 1934, and under the later leadership of Pendray, George P. Sutton and William H. Pickering, it became the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1963.
David Lasser | Early years
A proposed solution eliminated wings altogether: design the fuselage body itself to produce lift. NASA's refinements of the lifting body concept began in 1962 with R. Dale Reed of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. The first full-size model to come out of Reed's program was the NASA M2-F1, an unpowered craft made of wood. Initial tests were performed by towing the M2-F1 along a dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base California, behind a modified Pontiac Catalina. Later the craft was towed behind a C-47 and released. Since the M2-F1 was a glider, a small rocket motor was added in order to extend the landing envelope.
Lifting body | History
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved, and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NACA was an initialism, i.e. it was pronounced as individual letters, rather than as a whole word (as was NASA during the early years after being established). Among other advancements, NACA research and development produced the NACA duct, a type of air intake used in modern automotive applications, the NACA cowling, and several series of NACA airfoils which are still used in aircraft manufacturing.
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics | Introduction
The original 1958 act charged the new Agency with conducting the aeronautical and space activities of the United States "so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:" In 2012, a ninth objective was added:
National Aeronautics and Space Act | Introduction
In 1955 the Redstone team was selected to put America's first satellite into orbit putting this group at the center of both military and commercial space. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory traces its history from the 1930s, when Caltech professor Theodore von Karman conducted pioneering work in rocket propulsion. Funded by Army Ordnance in 1942, JPL's early efforts would eventually involve technologies beyond those of aerodynamics and propellant chemistry. The result of the Army Ordnance effort was JPL's answer to the German V-2 missile, named MGM-5 Corporal, first launched in May 1947. On December 3, 1958, two months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created by Congress, JPL was transferred from Army jurisdiction to that of this new civilian space agency.
Guidance system | History
The Israeli Space Agency originated as university-based research project from Tel-Aviv University in the early 1960s. In 1960, the National Committee for Space Research (NCSR) was formed by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The committee was formed to increase research activities across the academic communities in Israel. While at the time, establishing a space program was not particularly one of its goals, during the '60s through the late '70s, the committee developed the infrastructure needed for research and development in space exploration and sciences. One of the NCSR's earliest achievements took place in 1961 with the launch of its first two-stage rocket.
National Committee for Space Research | 1960s
It is home to the United States Astronaut Corps and is responsible for training astronauts from the U.S. and its international partners, and includes the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center. The center was renamed in honor of the late U.S. president and Texas native Lyndon B. Johnson on February 19, 1973. John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), located west of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, is one of the best known NASA facilities. Named the Launch Operations Center at its creation on July 1, 1962, it was renamed in honor of the late U.S. president on November 29, 1963, and has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968.
NASA facilities | Built by NASA
The John J. Montgomery Award was created by the National Society of Aerospace Professionals (NSAP) and the San Diego Aerospace Museum in 1962 for aerospace achievement. It was awarded from 1962 to at least 1964.
John J. Montgomery Award | Introduction
In response to the Apollo 1 accident, which killed three astronauts in 1967, Congress directed NASA to form an Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) to advise the NASA Administrator on safety issues and hazards in NASA's aerospace programs. In the aftermath of the Shuttle "Columbia" disaster, Congress required that the ASAP submit an annual report to the NASA Administrator and to Congress. By 1971, NASA had also established the Space Program Advisory Council and the Research and Technology Advisory Council to provide the administrator with advisory committee support. In 1977, the latter two were combined to form the NASA Advisory Council (NAC).
NASA | NASA Advisory Council
In response to pressure from Congress to match and surpass Soviet achievements in space, NASA created an American manned spaceflight project called Project Mercury. Project Mercury attracted criticism from the scientific community, who preferred a more methodical approach to space science. With the replacement of Eisenhower by John F. Kennedy in 1961, a President's Science Advisory Committee panel headed by Donald Hornig was charged with reporting on Project Mercury. NASA feared that space exploration would be turned over to the Department of Defense, but found support for an expanded scientific space program from the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
NASA Astronaut Group 4 | Background
NASA introduced the astronauts in Washington, DC, on April 9, 1959. Although the agency viewed Project Mercury's purpose as an experiment to determine whether humans could survive space travel, the seven men immediately became national heroes and were compared by "Time" magazine to "Columbus, Magellan, Daniel Boone, and the Wright brothers." Two hundred reporters overflowed the room used for the announcement and alarmed the astronauts, who were unused to such a large audience. Because they wore civilian clothes, the audience did not see them as military test pilots but "mature, middle-class Americans, average in height and visage, family men all".
Mercury Seven | NASA introduction
As NASA Administrator, Glennan presided over an organization that had absorbed the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of US$100 million, and three major research laboratories—Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory—and two small test facilities made up the core of the new NASA. Within a short time after NASA's formal organization, Glennan incorporated several organizations involved in space exploration projects from other federal agencies into NASA to ensure that a viable scientific program of space exploration could be reasonably conducted over the long-term. He brought in part of the Naval Research Laboratory in NASA and created for its use the Goddard Space Flight Center.
T. Keith Glennan | Administration
The U.S. Navy had been tasked with building a rocket to lift satellites into orbit, but the resulting Vanguard rocket launch system was unreliable. In 1957, with the launch of Sputnik 1, a growing belief within the United States existed that it was lagging behind the Soviet Union in the emerging Space Race. American authorities then chose to use von Braun and his German team's experience with missiles to create an orbital launch vehicle. Von Braun had originally proposed such an idea in 1954, but it was denied at the time. NASA was established by law on July 29, 1958.
Wernher von Braun | NASA career
The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. In response to the Sputnik crisis, although he did not see Sputnik as a grave threat, the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, created a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to oversee an American space program. In doing so, he sought to emphasise the scientific nature of the American space program and downplay its military aspects.
NASA Astronaut Group 4 | Background
In addition to ARPA, various groups within the US government had been considering the formation of a civilian agency to handle space exploration. After the Sputnik launch, these efforts gained urgency and were quickly moved forward. NASA was formed on July 29, 1958, and immediately set about studying the problem of crewed space flight, and the launchers needed to work in this field. One goal, even in this early stage, was a crewed lunar mission. At the time, the NASA panels felt that the direct ascent mission profile was the best approach; this placed a single very large spacecraft in orbit, which was capable of flying to the Moon, landing and returning to Earth.
Saturn (rocket family) | NASA involvement
The society was established in the United States on March 28, 1987 by the merger of the National Space Institute, founded in 1974 by Dr. Wernher von Braun, and the L5 Society, founded in 1975 based on the concepts of Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill. The society has an elected volunteer Board of Directors and a Board of Governors. The chairman of the Board of Governors is United States Air Force Colonel Karlton Johnson (retired). The chairman of the Board of Directors is Kirby Ikin. The National Space Society was awarded the "Five-Star Best in America" award by the Independent Charities of America organization in 2005.
National Space Society | History
In its early years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration followed the policy of funding university research on an individual project basis. It was not until 1961, when Mr. James E. Webb became the Administrator of NASA, that the agency formulated a broad and far-reaching program of space research and exploration. The Office of Grants and Research Contracts instituted two programs: the Sustaining Grant Program and the Facilities Program. The Berkeley campus was one of the first universities to receive grants under these two programs. The Sustaining Grant, which provided the Space Sciences Laboratory with a core of funds for interdisciplinary research in the physical, biological, engineering, and social sciences, gave the Laboratory a foundation on which to build faculty programs and to generate new areas of graduate training through research.
Space Sciences Laboratory | Funding
The deadline for applications was midnight, January 8, 1967. It was expected that between twenty and thirty astronauts would be selected. By the deadline, 923 applications had been received. The NAS selection panel then went through them, and forwarded 69 on to NASA for consideration. For these candidates, background and security checks were conducted by the United States Civil Service Commission. They were then subjected to a week of physical and psychological tests and examinations at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. This reduced the number of candidates to 21.
NASA Astronaut Group 6 | Selection
While there was a big difference between the innocuous Sputnik and a spy satellite, it made it all that much harder for the Soviets to object to one. In February 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the USAF to proceed as quickly as possible with Discoverer (also known as Corona) as a joint Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-USAF interim project. On 18 August 1958, Eisenhower decided to give responsibility for most forms of human space flight to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald A. Quarles transferred $53.8 million (equivalent to $ in ) that had been set aside for USAF space projects to NASA.
Manned Orbiting Laboratory | Background
On September 10, 1965, NASA began the selection process for the fifth astronaut group. From a pool of 351 applicants, NASA selected 159 candidates that met the basic qualifications that required that applicants must be United States citizens born on or after December 1, 1929, and no more than six feet tall. They were also required to have at least 1,000 hours of flight time in a jet aircraft. Mattingly had previously shown little interest and inclination to apply for the astronaut program, however, his views changed when at the Air Force Test pilot school and his class was offered the chance to apply for either NASA or the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory program.
Ken Mattingly | Selection and training
The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) was formed on 1 July 1960, with a staff of about 4,000 former employees of ABMA and Wernher von Braun as Director. Cummings quickly secured a role for BECO in the development of the Saturn family of booster rockets. In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed the national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of the 1960s,” and the Apollo program was underway. During the first half of the 1960s, there was tremendous growth in the number of contractor firms and their activities at MSFC.
Milton K. Cummings | Space business
The H.R. 3942 legislation was enacted by the 98th Congressional session and signed by the 40th President of the United States Ronald Reagan on October 30, 1984.
Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 | Introduction
James Webb, an administrator from 1961 to 1968, put the program into effect. Webb wanted to use art to capture the emotions and importance of what NASA was doing. James Dean (an artist and NASA employee) became the head of the program with the help of Hereward Lester Cooke, a curator of National Galleys. To insure that the program would succeed, Cooke looked at similar programs that the air force had and decided that the program needed three things done: Use only commissioned artists, keep all of the sketches that the artists drew while they were observing, and give artists an idea of how to represent NASA, but still let them create whatever they wanted.
NASA Art Program | How the Program Began
The website was launched in May 2012. It gained widespread recognition after the story was covered by the major news corporations NBCNews, and Huffington Post. On December 22, 2012, BTE Dan created a petition on the White House's We the People website. The petition stated that NASA should do a feasibility study of the project. A petition on the website requires 25,000 signatures in 30 days to merit the attention of the White House. However, the petition only received 7,200 signatures.
Build the Enterprise | History
NASA's Origins program is a decades-long study addressing the origins of the universe, various astronomical bodies, and life. The Origins program was started in the 1990s. So far, it consists of the following missions: Missions marked with * are operational.
Origins Program | Introduction
The original NASTRAN program came out of NASA’s need to develop a common generic structural analysis program that would be used by all of the centers supporting the space program. A specification was written and a contract was awarded to Computer Sciences Corporation for development of NAsa STRuctural ANalysis (NASTRAN) software. NASTRAN was released to NASA in 1968.
NEi Nastran | History
The experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for crewed spaceflight. This was followed by a one-man space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. Reacting to loss of national prestige and security fears caused by early leads in space exploration by the Soviet Union, in 1961 President John F. Kennedy proposed the ambitious goal "of landing a man on the Moon by the end of [the 1960s], and returning him safely to the Earth." This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, and NASA planned even more ambitious activities leading to a human mission to Mars.
NASA | Crewed
On August 13, 1961, President Jânio Quadros signed a decree which created the Organizing Group for the National Commission on Space Activities (COGNAE). This group would give rise to the current National Institute for Space Research. COGNAE, which shortly after became known as CNAE, started its activities by stimulating, coordinating and supporting studies on space related areas, besides breeding a tam of skilled researchers and establishing cooperation with leading nations on the space area. On April 22, 1971, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) was created, subordinated to the National Research Council (CNPq). Its first Director was the electronic engineer Fernando de Mendonça.
National Institute for Space Research | History
By 1957, the Atlas missile project was proceeding well, and the need for a nuclear upper stage had all but disappeared. On 2 October 1957, the AEC proposed cutting its budget. Two days later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and contested cherished American notions of military, economic and technological superiority. This precipitated the Sputnik crisis, and triggered the Space Race. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which absorbed the NACA.
NERVA | Transfer to NASA
NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA or Nasa may also refer to:
NASA (disambiguation) | Introduction
This became the basis for the aerospaceplane, a fully reusable spacecraft that was never developed beyond the initial design phase in 1962–1963. Beginning in the early 1950s, NASA and the Air Force collaborated on developing lifting bodies to test aircraft that primarily generated lift from their fuselages instead of wings, and tested the M2-F1, M2-F2, M2-F3, HL-10, X-24A, and the X-24B. The program tested aerodynamic characteristics that would later be incorporated in design of the Space Shuttle, including unpowered landing from a high altitude and speed.
Space Shuttle | Historical background
Created in November 1958, the Space Task Group under the leadership of Robert Gilruth was tasked with superintending America's human spaceflight program, Project Mercury, having been given the responsibility of placing a human in orbit around the Earth. Of its original 37 engineers, 27 were from Langley Research Center and 10 had been assigned from Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1959, Gilruth's group was greatly expanded by the addition of the engineers from Canada who had been left without jobs when the Avro Arrow project was cancelled. Roberts joined NASA in April 1959, one of a group of 25 engineers and technicians hired from Avro Canada by NASA.
Tecwyn Roberts | Langley Research Center
Established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the NASC was chaired by the President of the United States (then Dwight Eisenhower). Other members included the Secretaries of State and Defense, the NASA Administrator, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, plus up to four additional members (one from the federal government and up to three from private industry) chosen at the President's discretion. The Council was allowed to employ a staff to be headed by a civilian executive secretary. Eisenhower did not use the NASC extensively during the remainder of his term, and recommended at the end of his last year in office, that it be abolished.
National Space Council | 1958–1973
NASA also decided to augment the scientist astronauts selected in 1965 with a second intake.
NASA Astronaut Group 6 | Background
The Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences was established July 24, 1958, when the Senate adopted S. Res. 327, introduced by Senator Lyndon Johnson. The resolution also extended the term of the Special Committee on Space and Astronautics until March 11, 1959, so it could complete its final report. Many of the members of the special committee joined the new standing committee.
United States Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences | History
The Japanese space program () originated in the mid-1950s as a research group led by Hideo Itokawa at the University of Tokyo. The size of the rockets produced gradually increased from under at the start of the project, to over by the mid-1960s. The aim of the original research project was to launch a man-made satellite. By the 1960s, two organizations, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), were developing their own rockets. After experiencing numerous failures in the 1990s and 2000s, ISAS and NASDA merged — along with the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL) — to form the unified Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2003.
Japanese space program | Introduction
In December 2019, the U.S. Congress authorized the creation of the United States Space Force, which was officially established on 20 December 2019. This new service branch was created by redesignating Air Force Space Command as the U.S. Space Force and elevating it to become an independent service branch.
Space force | History
In 1985, four young space enthusiasts created the Space Generation Foundation, dedicated to fostering a sense of identity for those people born since the beginning of the space era. The ISU founders are Peter Diamandis, one of the founders of SEDS and a medical doctor with a Master's in aerospace engineering from MIT; Todd Hawley, a graduate from Space Policy Institute at George Washington University; Robert D. Richards, an engineer and physicist, and former assistant of the well-known astrophysicist Carl Sagan and Christopher D. Mau, a venture capitalist living and working in Boston at the time. The four men generated a series of novel ideas from which a "Space University" was exceptionally well received.
International Space University | History
Man In Space Soonest was a United States Air Force program to put an American astronaut in orbit. It was canceled when NASA was formed in August 1958.
List of human spaceflight programs | Man In Space Soonest (USA, 1957–1958)
He also assisted in the development of the legislation that created the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT). After his retirement in 1969, he remained active as an advisor to NASA.
National Space Council | 1958–1973
Newell joined NASA in 1958, and was successively assistant director for space sciences (1958-1960), deputy director of space flight programs (1960-1961), director of space sciences (1961-1963), associate administrator for space science and applications (1963-1967) and finally associate administrator of NASA (1967-1974). In 1965, Newell was awarded the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service While at NASA, Newell drafted the first national plan for unmanned exploration of the moon and planets, developed NASA's procedure for scientific experiment selection, and was responsible for NASA's university programs. His influence peaked in the 1963-1967 period, when his Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) operated effectively as a nearly independent space program, not only selecting experiments and contracting for satellites and space probes but also contracting for launch vehicles and acting as the "executive agent" for space launch for other U.S.
Homer E. Newell Jr. | NASA
In 1959, the group was expanded by the addition of 32 engineers from Canada, who had been left without jobs when the Avro Arrow project was cancelled. These new engineers included Jim Chamberlin, George Harris, John Hodge, Owen Maynard, Bryan Erb, Rodney Rose, and Tecwyn Roberts. After President John F. Kennedy set the national goal on May 25, 1961, of landing men on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, it became clear to NASA administrator James E. Webb that Gilruth would need a much larger organization and facilities, in fact a new dedicated NASA center, to administer US manned space programs.
Space Task Group | History
The US Air Force had been developing a program to launch the first man in space, named Man in Space Soonest. This program studied several different types of one-man space vehicles, settling on a ballistic re-entry capsule launched on a derivative Atlas missile, and selecting a group of nine candidate pilots. After NASA's creation, the program was transferred over to the civilian agency and renamed Project Mercury on November 26, 1958. NASA selected a new group of astronaut (from the Greek for "star sailor") candidates from Navy, Air Force and Marine test pilots, and narrowed this down to a group of seven for the program.
Space Race | First American in space