Happy Birthday! NASA celebrates 50 years

When NASA required a small, portable machine to pick up samples from the surface of the moon, it commissioned Black & Decker to create the device. The computer program B&D made to produce the model inspired a new design, which was eventually used as the basis of the DustBuster. The composite material NASA developed for rocket casings has been incorporated into fire fighting equipment, while NASA research into algae as a recycling agent resulted in an improved recipe for baby food.

But when tracking ripples, the starting point has to be the splash that disturbed the pond. In the case of NASA, the splash was made by a spherical hunk of metal with whisker-like antennae and a simple transmitter.

Throwing up the gauntlet: The launch of Sputnik

On October 4, 1957, amateur radio operators were told to monitor the 20.005 and 40.002 MHz frequencies. For 22 days, an intermittent beeping sound could be detected – a sound congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce referred to as “an intercontinental, outer-space raspberry.” It was the sound transmitted by Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, launched without warning by the USSR in a staggering demonstration of technological superiority. The 585-millimeter model traveled 60 million kilometers in three months, orbiting the Earth 1,440 times before burning up on re-entry above Alaska.

The inspiration for Sputnik was a “super-weapon” designed by German scientist Wernher von Braun during WWII, which the Nazi Propaganda Ministry dubbed “Vengeance Weapon 2.” The V-2 rocket was the first ballistic missile, capable of striking at super-sonic speeds without warning. Hitler hoped the rocket would spread despair amongst the Allied forces, but despite repeated bombings of Belgium and Britain, it did not create the emotional impact necessary to turn the tide of the war. However, the value of the technology was not ignored, especially when the USA and USSR realized the V-2 could be adapted to achieve orbital flight – a longstanding scientific goal that until this time had been out of reach.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union had declared intentions to create satellites by the end of 1958, but the launch of Sputnik 1 was months earlier than the US anticipated, and far too early for them to match. When the USSR succeeded in placing the first animal in orbit on November 3, 1957, the United States had not even launched a satellite. Their first attempt at doing so, the Navy’s Vanguard TV3, launched on December 6, 1957, and rose just four feet into the air before exploding, earning the derisive title “Kaputnik” in the press. In response, Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in July 1958, creating NASA, an agency devoted to space travel and aerospace research. The C in every NACA logo was carefully painted over and replaced with an S. That, says Neil Armstrong, was the only thing to really indicate that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been dissolved, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had been created.

NASA’s early years: Project Mercury

By the time NASA began, the US had succeeded in launching Explorer 1, their first satellite. The Explorer program was initially overlooked in favor of Project Vanguard, but after the spectacular collapse of the first Vanguard satellite, Explorer was rushed into development and built in just 84 days. Behind Explorer’s success was Wernher von Braun, recruited by the US military under Operation Paperclip, and now aiming his rockets toward loftier targets. Von Braun’s expertise and management were pivotal to NASA’s space race accomplishments, though his history with the Nazi party made him a controversial figure – comedian Tom Lehrer remarked that he knew how to count down to zero in German and English…and started learning the Chinese.

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