NASA Founded: America Rallies Against Sputnik
President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, creating NASA as a civilian agency explicitly separated from military control. The timing was not subtle: the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik ten months earlier, and the United States had responded with a series of embarrassing rocket failures broadcast on live television. The Act transferred existing research from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), military programs, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory into a single organization. NASA received an initial budget of $100 million and a mandate for peaceful exploration. Within eleven years, it would put humans on the Moon, accomplishing what many scientists had considered impossible.
July 29, 1958
68 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on July 29
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King Rudolph II and Margrave Adalbert I crush dethroned Emperor Berengar I's forces at Firenzuola, ending his bid to reclaim the Italian throne. This decisive v…
Emperor Basil II annihilated the Bulgarian army at the Battle of Kleidion, then ordered the blinding of 15,000 prisoners, leaving one eye to every hundredth man…
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