Good morning,
Whitewater’s forecast for today calls for a sunny day with a high temperature of eighty-three degrees.
On this day in 1959, NASA was created. Wired describes the events leading to NASA’s birth in a story entitled, July 29, 1958: Ike Inks Space Law, NASA Born in Wake of Russ Moon”
President Eisenhower signed the legislation creating NASA on July 29, and it officially became a functioning entity Oct. 1, with T. Keith Glennan as its first administrator. There were 8,000 employees (inherited from NACA), three research laboratories — Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory — and an annual budget of $100 million. (That’s about $750 million in today’s money, compared to a 2010 budget of nearly $18 billion.)
The agency’s mission statement will have faint echoes for Star Trek fans: “To improve life here, to extend life there, to find life beyond.”
Photo: NASA
There’s now also a growing private space-travel industry, and President Obama deserves credit for encouraging private innovations.
Here’s a video of a ride on the smaller SpaceShip One from Virgin Galactic: