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

NASA is 50. And a big disappointment.

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up reading classic scifi like Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov..... That stuff really got my hopes up. I read that years ago and thought that by now, we should have interstellar travel, contact with extraterrestial entities, faster than light travel, vacations to the moon, colonies on Mars and on and on. But we have none of that. NASA doesn't do anything interesting. It hasn't improved our living conditions. IMHO, NASA is a waste of money and should be abolished. Fsck NASA.

Re:Selling you yesterday's future today

[savuporo]

Its about time to send this 50-year agency to retirement. There are good proposals to restructure government-sponsored space activities, with way more focus on development of space, focussed avionics and space technology research and handing pure science over to science organizations. In essence a return to NACA model for aeronautics research, science organizations being in charge of science and then some organizations working as catalysts to commercial space development activities. This, of course, would mean an end to government-run space trucking business ( Shuttle and any other government-operated and built launchers ) which currently takes up better part of a half of the entire space budget. There are gazillions of ways to spend this money better.

Re:NASA is 50. And a big disappointment.

[darjen]

if you want NASA to have more money, please feel free to donate your own cash. I want no part of it. Don't force others to fund your desires.