{"id":689,"date":"2007-07-29T17:42:41","date_gmt":"2007-07-29T22:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=689"},"modified":"2008-11-13T01:41:21","modified_gmt":"2008-11-13T06:41:21","slug":"happy-birthday-nasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=689","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday NASA!"},"content":{"rendered":"

49 years ago today,\u00a0President Dwight David 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<\/a>.\u00a0 NASA was created to respond to the challenge of Sputnik.<\/p>\n

Though this agency is often criticized, it’s monumental achievements cannot be overlooked.\u00a0 In addition to winning the race to the moon via its Mercury and Apollo programs, NASA has sent probes all over the solar system and\u00a0into true outer space.\u00a0 Today, NASA’s Rovers wander the surface of Mars, looking for the building blocks of life.\u00a0 NASA\u00a0built and launched Skylab and is now working on the International Space Station.\u00a0 It has launched numerous satellites that have performed spectacularly, perhaps best symbolized by the Hubble Telescope.\u00a0 It has built the Shuttle, the world’s only, true, spaceship; capable of\u00a0launching into space\u00a0(with a 20 ton payload) and returning.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And for we Space Elevator afficiandos, let’s not forget that NASA provided the money for Dr. Edwards research\u00a0which led to the\u00a0Space Elevator concept\u00a0we are all working for, not to mention the prize money for the\u00a0Space Elevator Games<\/a>.\u00a0The list of accomplishments goes on and on.<\/p>\n

Yes there have been mistakes and failures and people have criticized NASA (perhaps justly, perhaps not) for supposedly taking wrong paths with the ISS and the Shuttle.\u00a0 But NASA is an organization\u00a0which actually\u00a0accomplishes great and magnificent things.\u00a0 We take so much of what they do now for granted and we really shouldn’t.\u00a0 Space is hard.<\/p>\n

There is\u00a0little doubt that NASA is going through perhaps their most difficult time now.\u00a0 From constantly changing priorities, to personnel issues that have become soap-opera fodder, to trying to deal with the nascent commercialization of space, it sometimes seems now\u00a0like they are in a lose-lose situation.\u00a0 But I think we have to step back and take a look at the larger picture and just marvel at what they have actually accomplished and what they\u00a0continue to do.<\/p>\n

Next year is NASA’s fiftieth anniversary and I hope that day is marked by our country with great joy and celebration.<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday NASA!\u00a0 Long may you continue to ad astra per aspera.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

49 years ago today,\u00a0President Dwight David 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.\u00a0 NASA was created to respond to the challenge of Sputnik. Though this agency is often criticized, it’s monumental achievements cannot be overlooked.\u00a0 In addition to winning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-announcements","category-spaceelevatorcompetitions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}