NASA

Whether it be through film or print, Americans have always been fascinated with space travel. Stories range from the more mainstream exploration of space to "far-out" depictions of alien abductions and other encounters with creatures from another world. Much of our fascination with space has come out of the work of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), which was established in 1958 as an agency of the United States Government. With ten facilities—including the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and the main launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida—NASA's purpose is to coordinate and conduct aeronautical and space research.

With the Soviet launching of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, in October 1957, Americans became concerned about the apparent "technological gap" between the two world powers. In an attempt to bridge this gap, America launched its own satellite and established NASA. NASA quickly brought the "space race" to national attention as it sought to fulfill President John F. Kennedy's challenge to reach the moon before 1970.

Americans watched these events with a childlike fascination. A new frontier was about to be conquered. Cowboys, soldiers, and sports figures were replaced by America's new heroes, the seven astronauts chosen for the first manned space program, Project Mercury. NASA's work ignited tremendous excitement in the nation. Children played with spaceships, wore space helmets, and fired ray guns. Indeed, families even made trips to Cape Canaveral making it clear that our fascination with space was not just a fleeting one.

The world of popular culture would eventually catch up, and profit from, this fascination. Television programs such as Men Into Space and The Twilight Zone became popular as Americans anticipated the first manned flight, not knowing exactly what to expect. Science fiction movies and comic books, already popular since the days of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials, became even more popular. They pictured astronauts traveling into space, landing on hostile worlds, battling aliens, and encountering dangers that threatened mankind. Even Disneyland had its own World of Tomorrow. NASA sparked America's imagination by opening a frontier that had only been a dream.

Excitement was also mixed with fear. Some people who knew the families of astronauts wondered how they could let their sons go into space and bring back a deadly disease. Others objected because they believed that God never intended people to leave earth. But NASA launched two successful sub-orbital flights and then placed John Glenn into orbit. In the early years, though, NASA always seemed to be one step behind the Soviet space program. Americans wondered if NASA would win the ultimate prize of the space race… the first moon landing.

NASA enjoyed overall success until the deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts in early 1967. The three prime candidates for the first moon landing were killed when their spacecraft caught fire on the launching pad. This proved a setback to the program, but NASA would reach its goal on July 20, 1969 when the Apollo Project resulted in the first successful moon landing. The image of Neil Armstrong walking on the lunar surface is permanently impressed upon the memories of Americans who watched it on television. The astronauts were immediate celebrities and NASA's popularity soared. The Apollo spacecraft toured American cities and it became clear that the successful Apollo program was the ultimate sign of American prestige and technological superiority. NASA's popularity, however, began to wane as Americans grew weary of moon landings. Reruns of The Howdy Doody Show achieved higher ratings than NASA's later lunar voyages and people complained to television stations that their soap operas had been interrupted by these space missions.

In 1973, NASA launched Skylab, the first United States manned space laboratory. The Apollo-Soyuz project was a later joint American-Soviet mission, but it took the first manned space shuttle, launched in 1981, to rekindle NASA's popularity. The rise in popularity, however, would be short-lived as a series of failures changed the way Americans looked at NASA.

Christa McAuliffe, the school teacher who trained with NASA astronauts for the Challenger shuttle mission, made Americans everywhere believe that space travel was possible for the average person. The vision of Challenger exploding on the television screen on January 28, 1986 is indelibly burned into the memories of millions of Americans. Many Americans became critical of NASA and the space shuttle program, questioning the safety of space travel and research. After a two year hiatus, shuttle launches resumed when Discovery blasted off in September of 1988.

While the agency made successful shuttle launches, it also sent unmanned probes to other planets and placed the Hubble space telescope into orbit, supplying detailed pictures of other worlds. NASA also captured the imagination of the public when it successfully launched the Mars Pathfinder in July of 1997—the Mars rover sent photographs back to Earth and the public once again discussed the possibility of life on the Red Planet.

After the Challenger tragedy, space shuttle flights became so routine they were only briefly mentioned in the news. Former Astronaut and Senator John Glenn changed that when he came out of retirement to join the crew of the Discovery in 1998, becoming the oldest person to ever travel into space.

Over the years, NASA has provided inspiration for many science fiction writers and movie makers. The television series Star Trek and the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) were released during the "space race" era. NASA has been featured in many popular movies, including Apollo 13 (1995), that popularized astronaut Jim Lovell's announcement "Houston, we have a problem." The Right Stuff (1983) and the HBO (Home Box Office) mini-series From the Earth to the Moon (1998) have also documented NASA's work. NASA has even been the source of speculation for conspiracy theorists. Some authors believe NASA covered up Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sightings by early astronauts. They also accuse NASA of hiding the truth about an alleged monument on Mars supposedly caught on film in 1976. Some groups believe that no moon landing ever took place and that the lunar landing was staged on a movie set.

The history of NASA is a mixture of tragedy and triumph. Over the years, the American public has had mixed feeling regarding the success and usefulness of NASA. With the on-going speculation regarding life on other planets, Americans will continue to be intrigued with NASA's efforts to explore outer space.

—James H. Lloyd

Further Reading:

Gray, Mike. Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the

Moon. New York, Norton, 1992.

Launius, Roger D., and Bertram Ulrich. NASA and the Exploration of Space: With Works from the NASA Art Collection. New York, Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1998.

McCurdy, Howard E. Inside NASA. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York, Bantam Books, 1983.