NASA Turns 50

phobos13013 writes "Fifty years ago yesterday, in 1958, President Eisenhower signed the United States Public Law 85-568, National Aeronautics and Space Act to create NASA. In the fifty years since its creation, NASA has made manned missions landing on the Moon, put a space station in orbit, launched numerous unmanned missions to the Moon, Mars, the solar system, and beyond, as well as launching reusable manned spacecraft in orbit. Some of the failures included the loss of two manned spacecraft and their crews as well as the loss of the Apollo 1 crew during a training mission. Although the future of the organization is in question, Americans, and the world, are looking forward to another fifty years of progress including a return trip to the Moon and an eventual manned mission to Mars."

Comments

Re:ah, for a moon landing flame war...

[TorKlingberg]

It's a classic xkcd strip: http://xkcd.com/202

ROI from NASA

[sjbe]

What is the return on the American investment here?

Here is a breakdown by state and here is just some of the technology that has come out of NASA.

All the Trillions of dollars the American tax payer has sent to NASA over the years.

What trillions? The total amount spent on NASA since its inception in 1958 is $592 billion. We spend that much every year on our military.