NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Denise Lineberry

Roger Launius took NASA Langley back in time Tuesday.

“We emerged from World War II as the world’s greatest leader,” said Launius, senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., to a Colloquium audience in the Reid Conference Center. “Our only true rival was the Soviet Union.”

He recalled ducking under tables for drills in elementary school during the Cold War. He discussed technological rivalries and the “difficulty of maintaining a peaceful existence.”

According to Launius, a piece of this peaceful existence was demonstrating space flight technology capabilities to the world.

“Even before Sputnik takes place, you have sizeable contributions to space flight from Americans,” Launius said. Sizeable in the amount of $11.8 billion spent between 1953 and 1957.

Dave Bowles, director of the Exploration & Space Operations Directorate, presents Roger Launius with an appreciation plaque for taking part in the Langley Colloquium series.

Photo Credit: NASA/Denise Lineberry

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Sizeable also in the creation of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), which began as a suggestion by James Van Allan to a group that was meeting in his living room at home. The U.S. launched Explorer 1 for the IGY, almost four months after Sputnik.

“Sputnik is a result of the IGY satellite effort,” Launius said.

So, although the Americans trailed in the “space race” in the beginning, the U.S. was headed in the right direction. But not everyone saw it that way, Launius said.

After the Soviet Union’s success with Sputnik 1 and 2, followed by the Americans’ unsuccessful launch of the Vanguard satellite, some doubted American space technology.

But the same events prompted enthusiasts, Department of Defense (DoD) officials, aerospace industries, scientific communities and researchers to ask, “What can we do now?”

Launius explained that President Eisenhower was bombarded with proposals for a new space organization. Eisenhower chose the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics as its core.

“NACA was revamped with several core elements from DoD,” Launius said.

And NASA was born.

On July 29, 1958, NASA was signed into law. On October 1, 1958, NASA began operating. And it still operates today under a similar space exploration agenda that was created in the mid-1950s.

The steps as introduced by Launius:
1. Human Earth orbital flights
2. Winged reusable spacecraft
3. Permanently inhabited space station
4. Human lunar exploration
5. Human expeditions to Mars

“During the ‘space race’ we bumped number four to number two, but when we got out of that, we got right back to the list,” Launius said.

Space shuttles and space stations, landing humans on the moon and making new discoveries on Mars, these are all realities created and accomplished by NASA.

“And that’s where we are,” said Launius. “This goes back 50 years, but we have not modified the agenda all that much.”

By 1965, seven years after NASA was born, polls revealed that Americans finally believed they were winning the “space race.” With the Gemini program under our belt and the Apollo becoming real, trailing in the space race behind the Russians and Sputnik was becoming a distant memory.


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry