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

Selling you yesterday's future today

[Eukariote]

50 years, and we are still stuck in low Earth orbit. 50 years, and still no cost-effective launch system.

Re:NASA is 50. And a big disappointment.

[clarkkent09]

Hmm, that might be because reality is different from science fiction. We don't have intelligent humanoid robots either or even flying cars (you'd think that one would be easy), so are those NASA's fault as well? Increase NASA's budget to more than the current fraction on one percent of the national budget and maybe we'll see some more progress

Re:But what comes next?

[clarkkent09]

NASA has accomplished some truly amazing feats during the last 50 years, the pinnacle surely being the moon landing of Apollo 11

But that was 40 years ago, which is exactly what the problem is. NASA's budget has been going down ever since (as a percentage of the nation's budget) all the way from 4% to 0.7% and falling. The only way things are going to change in a dramatic way is if somebody figures out a genuine commercial interest in space exploration, which would lead to an increase in NASA's budget and more competition from private sector and from other nations.

NASA continues to be undervalued.

[GreggBz]

I just think it's been a self destructive downward spiral.

Cut funding for NASA, NASA stops doing amazing things, people stop caring about NASA, the peoples representative stop caring about NASA, cut more funding from NASA, rinse, repeat.

I wonder if we subtracted a great percentage of things like weather forecasting, satellite communications, planetary geology, solar technology, aerospace and commercial aviation advancements, awesome pictures of our Universe and other worlds, a growth in understanding of the Universe.... if people would start to care.

NASA was a catalyst behind so much stuff that everyone now takes for granted. They are the root of a giant science and technology tree.

The flaws and bureaucracy were always there. If NASA had funding and direction the flaws wouldn't be the biggest thing we notice.

To bad.

Re:But what comes next?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Or, people in this country stop acting so anti-government and commit to a space program on the scales you're talking about. Personally, I don't see commercial interests EVER besting NASA as far as milestones go. Sure, they can use the technology that national space programs develop, but no way a corporation is going to sink $100 billion into getting a man on the Mars.

Everyone keeps talking about how NASA is in danger as if Microsoft is going to take over space exploration. NASA hasn't hit the same scale of milestones as the moon shot, but I've been impressed with what they've been getting done. Now, I want to see more but we live in a country full of intellectually disinterested American Idol fans.

Re:But what comes next?

[icebrain]

I'm tired of this "but there are poor people!" argument. We could dump every spare cent in the budget into welfare programs, and you'll still have poor people.

If you want to look at it this way, a space program is a jobs program. It's not like all the money spent on it is thrown away in space, or burned in a giant pit... that money all goes into the economy. It pays all the small contractors that make electronics, valves, pumps, etc.; it pays all the mechanics and technicians that build and maintain the systems; it pays all the engineers that design the spacecraft... and all those people have to live and eat somewhere. Make the program interesting, and kids will think "hey, I want a part of that", and they'll stay in school, get science and engineering degrees, and have a better future. I think that's much more beneficial than just handing out welfare checks.

We need to change the focus of the space program, too. No more of this focus solely on science; it's good and all, but it doesn't directly solve practical problems. The focus should instead be on preserving the human race--ie, developing defenses against planet-killer asteroids and spreading out over many worlds (redundant off-site backups). And you know that, if something happens (like a large asteroid coming at us), the public will be screaming "do something, save us!" And I'll just be sitting there saying "well, I told you so, but nobody listened."