The legislation that emerged called for a new agency rather than a strengthened NACA, responding to the criticism of some that NACA had become too lethargic to deal with the onrush of events, and that a new start was needed. Dembling – general counsel for the NACA during the crucial 1957-58 period and later the NASA general counsel – recalled that it was a high pressure situation “because other agencies were seeking the mantle, and we didn’t know exactly where we all stood.” Dembling, who is still alive and well today, recalls there was no one source for drafting such legislation, and he relied on past decisions by the General Accounting Office. Shapley (son of the famous Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley), later became a Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA. One of those Bureau of Budget drafters, Willis H. In the following weeks legislation was drafted by the Bureau of the Budget, NACA and Killian’s office. It proposed a civilian space agency built around the NACA, which by this time spent about half its total effort on space-related projects, including the Vanguard, X-15, and Defense Department missile programs. By March 5 Eisenhower had approved a memorandum, dated the same day and signed by Nelson Rockefeller, chairman of the President’s Advisory Committee on Government Organization, on which Killian also served. Killian, Jr., to convene the Presidential Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) for deliberations on the subject. Meanwhile, in the Executive Branch President Eisenhower had asked his science advisor, James R. On the House side of Congress the Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration was created on March 5, chaired by House majority leader John W. 6, 1958 to the establishment of a Senate Special Committee on Space and Aeronautics, with the goal of establishing a space agency, and Senator Johnson as its chairman. Johnson began hearings on American space and missile activities in the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The making of the explorers 1985 how to#
If it was military or civilian agency, then how to divide the tasks peculiar to each function? Should the new agency include aeronautical activities? Should it have the power to implement international agreements, how should those agreements be used as an instrument of foreign policy, and what should the new agency’s relationship be with the State Department?Īlready on Nov. Should there be a new agency, or one built on an already established institution, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), or the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)? Or should it be part of a military agency – the Army and Air Force were both keen, based on their missile work. In the wake of the Sputniks, events moved quickly toward the development of NASA, especially considering the weighty issues that had to be resolved. Although the United States already had its own satellite plans in place as part of the International Geophysical Year, the Russian events spurred the Space Age, and in particular gave urgency to the founding of an American national space agency. In the midst of the Cold War, a country that aspired to global preeminence could not let that challenge pass. 4, 1957, followed by its even weightier successors. The driving force, of course, was the launch of Sputnik on Oct. This photo, dated Maand probably taken at NASA’s first Headquarters at the Dolley Madison House, also shows the new seal of NASA above Glennan. Dryden, Deputy Administrator (left), and Richard E. Keith Glennan, Administrator (center), Hugh L. NASA's top management from 1958-1960 was T. Fifty years ago, however the agency that pushed the frontiers of aeronautics, took us to the moon, flew the space shuttle, built the International Space Station and revealed the secrets of the cosmos, was in its birth throes, and fundamental decisions were being made that profoundly shaped all that was to come. It may well be argued that NASA has become the world's premier agent for exploration, carrying on in "the new ocean" of outer space a long tradition of expanding the physical and mental boundaries of humanity.
The making of the explorers 1985 series#
Editor's Note: This is the 29th in a series of essays on exploration by NASA's Chief Historian, Steven J.
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