Transformation Into NASA
On January 14, 1958, Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology," which stated:
| “ | It is of great urgency and importance to our country both from consideration of our prestige as a nation as well as military necessity that this challenge (Sputnik) be met by an energetic program of research and development for the conquest of space....
It is accordingly proposed that the scientific research be the responsibility of a national civilian agency working in close cooperation with the applied research and development groups required for weapon systems development by the military. The pattern to be followed is that already developed by the NACA and the military services.... The NACA is capable, by rapid extension and expansion of its effort, of providing leadership in space technology. |
” |
On March 5, 1958, James Killian, who chaired the President's Science Advisory Committee, wrote a memorandum to the President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Titled, "Organization for Civil Space Programs," it encouraged the President to sanction the creation of NASA. He wrote that a civil space program should be based on a "strengthened and redesignated" NACA, indicating that NACA was a "going Federal research agency" with 7,500 employees and $300 million worth of facilities, which could expand its research program "with a minimum of delay."
Read more about this topic: National Advisory Committee For Aeronautics
Famous quotes containing the word nasa:
“If we did not have such a thing as an airplane today, we would probably create something the size of NASA to make one.”
—H. Ross Perot (b. 1930)