Happy 50th Birthday NASA!

On this day, 50 years ago, President Dwight Eisenhower signed The National Aeronautics and Space Act (Pub.L. 85-568) to create The National Aeronautics and Space Agency, more commonly known as NASA.  NASA was created to respond to the challenge of Sputnik and officially began operations on October 1st of that year.

I’ve always admired NASA, in spite of its well-chronicled woes, and posted my thoughts about them last year (so I won’t repeat them).  Suffice it to say I’m a big fan.

The picture (from the NASA web site) shows President Eisenhower (center), Dr. T. Keith Glennan, right, commissioned as the first administrator for NASA and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden as deputy administrator.  As always, click on the picture for a larger version.

Happy Birthday NASA!  Long may you continue to amaze us with your accomplishments and long may you continue to ad astra per aspera.