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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."
You failed to capitalize the first word of your sentence. Never post again.
Exactly. The moon landing was obviously filmed in a studio in the Hollow Earth. Gravity is lower inside the Earth, since there is more mass on all sides, so it was the perfect location to fake the landing. It was also filmed inside the largest vaccuum chamber ever built to replicate the lack of air on the moon. I don't understand why more people haven't realized these obvious truths.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
i ve seen the space shuttle ass hole it definetly landed on the moon do some research...
NASA has accomplished some trult amazing feats during the last 50 years, the pinnacle surely being the moon landing of Apollo 11, which I remember watching as an awe-struck 13 year old. But where does it go from here?
With many countries now seriously into spaceflight and a burgeoning private sector (Virgin Galactic et al) it's hard to see how NASA will stand out as it has done previously.
However in a much more space-focussed world, NASA's vast experience should allow it to take the lead heading-up collaborative ventures with other space-faring nations, particularly for the 'Big One', a manned trip to Mars. A firm commitment to this within a set timescale could re-ignite the public's interest in space exploration like the Moon landings of the early 70s did.
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It has one of those?
50 years, and we are still stuck in low Earth orbit. 50 years, and still no cost-effective launch system.
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
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
But they won't be done by NASA. NASA has become too politicized, too corporate centered, and above all too risk adverse. The upcoming Orion system is just a rehash of the Saturn-5 with reused Shuttle parts. It breaks no new ground and does not push the envelope in any way. If we've learned anything in the last 50 years it is this: 1) When NASA is not pushing the envelope and taking risks it stagnates, gets sloppy, and then a mission fails. 2) You cannot explore space on the cheap.
NASA is now not pushing the envelope in any way and they are trying to come up with a new launch system, go to the Moon, and on to Mars without spending any more money. They will fail and people will die.
I expect to see people walking on the Moon again and possibly Mars within my lifetime. They will be European and Chinese. America will be remembered by history as the Portuguese of the 20th century. Portugal was the first nation to push out and explore the world by ship. Columbus was Portuguese. The first European to round the southern tip of Africa was Portuguese. Then they stopped and Spain, England and the Dutch took up the effort and built globe spanning empires. The US and NASA are following this same path.
It's a classic xkcd strip: http://xkcd.com/202
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.
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.