A brief history of NASA

Established in on 29th July 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has had a busy 63 years. So we thought we’d take you on a quick orbit of NASA’s history!

?The Soviet Union takes the lead in the space race…

…and NASA is born. We start our history lesson in 1957, with the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite – a milestone that shocked the US and deepened Cold War tensions. Experts and citizens alike feared that the US was falling behind in engineering and developing new technology. And so NASA was created in 1958 to research ‘the problems of flight within and outside the Earth’s atmosphere’. Thus, NASA was already well established before President John F. Kennedy’s announcement in 1961 that America would land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.

?The Apollo programme

NASA’s early focus was on working out whether humans could survive in space, and then, after Kennedy’s announcement, perfecting the technology and engineering needed to get man to the Moon. NASA’s Apollo programme was designed with this goal in mind. Out of a total 11 manned Apollo spaceflights, the first four flights focused on testing equipment, then six of the remaining seven flights landed on the Moon.

?Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to the Moon, but it was the Apollo 11 mission that made the first landing. In July 1969, Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made those famous first steps – but let’s spare a thought for the ‘third man’ Michael Collins, who stayed on board Apollo 11 and orbited the Moon alone for more than 21 hours while Armstrong and Aldrin bounced around below.

?The other famous milestone in the Apollo programme is Apollo 13 – a mission that was supposed to land on the Moon, but got into technical difficulties, resulting in some serious improvisation to bring the astronauts home safely. The episode – which, let’s be honest, did little for the number 13’s unlucky reputation – was immortalised in a movie starring Tom Hanks.

?In total, NASA’s Apollo programme put 12 astronauts on the Moon, with the last Moon landing coming in 1972.

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The Space Shuttle programme

In terms of human spaceflight, NASA’s next big milestone came in the 1980s, with the creation of the Space Shuttle programme – a programme that would continue for 30 years.

?The first Shuttle mission, STS-1, launched in April 1981 and successfully demonstrated that the shuttle could take off vertically and glide to an aeroplane-style landing. But after the Challenger tragedy in 1986 – when the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members – the programme was grounded for more than two years. Space Shuttle missions resumed in 1988, and NASA went on to fly 87 successful missions.

?Another tragedy occurred in 2003, when the Columbia shuttle disintegrated as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, again killing all seven crew members on board.

?Despite these tragedies, the Space Shuttle programme represented a huge leap forward in spaceflight technology, and enabled mankind’s next major breakthrough in space: the International Space Station (ISS).

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A permanently-manned orbiting station

The ISS wasn’t the first space station – in fact, it’s the ninth. (Predecessors include Russia’s Mir station and the US Skylab project, which was America’s first space station.) But what’s special about the ISS is it represents greater collaboration in space exploration. In 1993 Russia partnered with the US and other nations to design and build a joint facility in space – what would formally become known as the International Space Station. Assembly began in November 1998, and the first resident crew arrived in November 2000. This marked a new era of permanent human habitation in space.?

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We’re off to Mars?

Formed in 1993, the Mars Exploration Programme is NASA’s long-term effort to explore the Red Planet. To date, the programme has used orbital spacecraft, landers and Mars rovers to investigate Mars. Most recently, NASA’S Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February 2021 after a seventh-month voyage. It is currently rovering around (that’s the appropriate verb for a rover, right?) searching for signs of ancient life – and gathering intel that will hopefully pave the way for manned Mars missions in future.

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Giving earthlings a new perspective

Over the last 60+ years, NASA has also been responsible for launching a number of satellites that have improved our life on Earth, including communications and weather satellites, and the Landsat satellites, which gather information on Earth’s features and natural resources. Plus, through unmanned missions and orbital spacecraft like the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA has carried out intensive investigation of the universe around us, as well as this blue marble we call home. Today, NASA is also playing a critical role in developing a robust commercial space economy, alongside partners such as SpaceX.

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