Today marks the 50th anniversery of the founding of NASA. NASA was born in reaction to the Soviet Union launching the world’s first satellite, Sputnik. Prior to NASA, the American space program was a mish-mash of various programs in various military branches and other public and private organizations.
NASA had its work cut out for itself. The Soviet Union was determined to get the most cold war propaganda value out of its space program so it was unafraid to hurry to get various ‘firsts’ in the space race: 1st man in space, 1 capsule with three astronauts, 1st woman in space, 1st space walk, etc. NASA had to grit its teeth and move along with its own manned an unmanned programs that were to lead to a larger goal: a Man on the Moon.
In the long term, NASA’s strategy worked out. By learning from the Mercury and Gemini programs, NASA was able to make the steady progress needed for the Apollo program. In the meantime, the Soviets ‘Stunts in Space’ programs had taken their toll on research and they found themselves falling behind. In later years, it would be revealed that many of the Soviet firsts were done at the expense of safety or research. For example, Valentina Vladimirovna got sick in space and the Soviets assumed women could not handle the stress of space travel (even though she logged more hours than all US astronauts to that date), the ‘3 man capsule’was merely a third small cosmonaut crammed in with no one wearing a pressure suit, and the Soviet space walk by Alexi Leonov, was incredibly dangerous and he almost was unable to get back into the capsule. These ‘firsts’ were great propaganda victories, but they meant the Soviet Union space program had to take its eyes off other prizes.
Meanwhile, NASA’s work led to the development of the Saturn 5 rockets, which were the only rockets ever developed that could get a manned mission to the Moon. This critical rocket issue cannot be overstated as the lack of such a powerful rocket prevented the USSR from even trying to make it to the Moon. As a result, and with great efforts by engineers an astronauts, Man first walked on the Moon on July 21, 1969.
There were other Apollo missions, and they did critical research on the Moon, but the political will back in the US started to fade quickly. The propaganda value of beating the Soviets soon faded and after Nixon took office he nixed the remaining missions.
During the space race, NASA’s budget was at times a signifigant 2% of the United State’s budget. Today it is nowhere near that,although they still have another mission to get to the Moon and then onto Mars. But from the end of the Apollo program to the present day, NASA’s interest has been in the Space Shuttle and umanned space probes.
The earliest space probes in the post 70s era were the most impressive. Vikings 1 & 2 were the first probes on Mars (and were very bulky by comparison to todays probes). More telling were Voyagers 1 & 2, which made close flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus, sending back images of the planets we had never seen so close before and making first time discoveries (several new moons and a ring around Jupiter, for example). Ironicly, the Voyager probes killed off amatuer astronomy as a hobby for a time because there seemed to be no point to looking at the planets that looked like small dots when your television and magazines were filled with gorgeous close-up photos of the planets.
Today, NASA still is sending out unmanned probes, with its most successful series of probes exploring Mars. Probes like the Phoenix learn more and more with each day. In the meantime, after two losses, NASA is winding down its 30 year old shuttle program and has yet to decide on a replacement for it.
In the meantime, NASA was given a new directive by President Bush to put astronauts on the Moon and then onto Mars. Time will tell if they can meet these new challenges.
Happy 50th, NASA, and many happy space flights to come.
Filed under: Astronomy, NASA, Science History
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