National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the US Govt's agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research.

US 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 National Aeronautics and Space Act  was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958

NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs

Unmanned programs launched the first American artificial satellites into Earth orbit for scientific and communications purposes, and sent scientific probes to explore the planets of the solar system, starting with Venus and Mars and including ''grand tours''of the outer planets.

Manned programs sent the first Americans into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), won the Space Race with the Soviet Union by landing twelve men on the Moon from 1969 to 1972 in the Apollo Program, developed a semi-reusable LEO Space Shuttle, and developed LEO Space Station capability by itself and with the cooperation of several other nations including post-Soviet Russia

Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter

On May 5, 1961, Astronaut Alan Shephard became the first American in space aboard Freedom 7 launched by a Redstone Booster on a 15-minute Ballistic (suborbital) flight

On February 20,1962,John Glenn became the first American to be launched into Orbit by an Atlas launch vehicle aboard Friendship

On June 3, 1965 Astronaut Ed White became the first American to step into space during NASA's Gemini 4 mission