Cody Murray 7th hour December 12th, 2013 Ms.

Wolf The History and Research of NASA "(There are) many aspects of space and space technology, which can be helpful to all people as the United States proceeds with its peaceful program in space science and exploration. Every person has the opportunity to share through understanding in the adventures which lie ahead... This was said by Dwight D Eisenhower when he became president. He was giving this speech at the opening ceremony for the program, NASA. Dwights idea for starting the program was to explore, and to cure the curiosity of space and what is beyond it. The acronym NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA is an intellectual program to help further growth of knowledge of Earth and space, through the help of man and unmanned missions. What are the goals of NASA in present day? The number one goal right now is to see whether life has ever arisen on Mars. NASA is seeing if there are clues of liquid of past or present time. The second goal is to see if Mars ever had a climate that could sustain water and have an atmosphere. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will search for evidence of present day ice or liquid water beneath the surface and explore the subsurface structure of the polar caps and

nearby terrain in search of evidence of the role water played in Mars' past climate. The Mars rover, Curiosity, has dug under the surface of the red planet finding not just red dry dirt, but a pocket of dead atoms of a compound, hydrogen and oxygen, water. Even though a trace of water has been found they want to try to find an amount of live atoms closer to the surface (About NASA: What did they do?, all). Many projects and other subprograms have happened since the beginning of the actual NASA program, after the existing Apollo program was chartered by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961, to land men on the Moon, it became evident to NASA officials that a followon to the Mercury program was required to develop certain spaceflight capabilities in support of Apollo. Originally introduced on December 7 as Mercury Mark II, it was re-christened Project Gemini on January 3, 1962, from the fact that the spacecraft would hold two crewmen, as Gemini in Latin means "twins" or "side-by-side". Gemini is also the name of the third constellation of the Zodiac and its twin stars, Castor and Pollux (Mercury Manned Flights Summary NASA Administrator, all). NASA selected McDonnell Aircraft, which had been the prime contractor for the Project Mercury capsule, to build the Gemini capsule in 1961 and the first capsule was delivered in 1963. The spacecraft was 19 feet long and 10 feet wide with a launch weight of 8,490 pounds. The Gemini capsule first flew with a crew on March 23, 1965. This mission was to fly 3 orbits with the astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young. From 1964 to 1966 there were 12 Gemini launches, not all were successful; Gemini 6 blew up on October 25th.

The Gemini program was managed by the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, under direction of the Office of Manned Space Flight, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. Dr. George E. Mueller, Associate Administrator of NASA for Manned Space Flight, served as acting director of the Gemini program. William C. Schneider, Deputy Director of Manned Space Flight for Mission Operations, served as mission director on all Gemini flights beginning with Gemini 6A. Astronaut Gus Grissom was heavily involved in the development and design of the Gemini spacecraft. Apollo was one of the most expensive American scientific programs ever. The second manned mission, Apollo 8, brought for the first time, astronauts in a flight around the Moon in December 1968. Shortly before, the Soviets had sent an unmanned spacecraft around the Moon. On the next two missions docking maneuvers that were needed for the Moon landing were practiced and then finally the Moon landing was made on the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. The first person to stand on the Moon was Neil Armstrong, who was followed by Buzz Aldrin, while Michael Collins orbited above. Five subsequent Apollo missions have also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last one in December 1972. Throughout these six Apollo spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon. These missions returned a wealth of scientific data and of lunar samples. Topics covered by experiments performed included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismology, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind. The Moon landing marked the end of the space race and as a gesture, Armstrong mentioned mankind when he stepped down on the Moon (Apollo 13 Mission, 23-35) (History of Space Vehicles, 56) Along

with one manned missions, the program has also done unmanned missions. More than 1,000 unmanned missions have been designed to explore the Earth and the solar system. Besides exploration, communication satellites have also been launched by NASA. The missions have been launched directly from Earth or from orbiting space shuttles, which could either deploy the satellite itself, or with a rocket stage to take it farther. The first US unmanned satellite was Explorer 1, which started as an ABMA/JPL project during the early space race. Launched into orbit in 1990, NASA's Hubble Telescope has revolutionized astronomy and inspired a generation with its magnificent views of the universe. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted signs of water on five faraway planets, according to two studies. Hubble has traveled many light years away and has sent us marvelous pictures of nebulas, and galaxies. The missions of the past are brilliant and amazing, the future of the missions are going to be wonderful. Throughout many years, NASA has had many challenges with keeping the program and lawsuits against them. The percentage of federal budget that NASA has been allocated has been steadily dropping since the Apollo program and as of 2012 the NASA budget is estimated to be 0.48% of the federal budget. Neil deGrasse Tyson testified that "Right now, NASAs annual budget is half a penny on your tax dollar. For twice thata penny on a dollarwe can transform the country from a sullen, dispirited nation, weary of economic struggle, to one where it has reclaimed its 20th century birthright to dream of tomorrow." NASA's budget has generally been approximately 1% of the federal budget from the early 1970s on, but briefly peaked to

approximately 4.41% in 1966 during the Apollo program. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has landed robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, sent probes to outer planets and operates a worldwide network of antennas that communicates with interplanetary spacecraft. Its latest mission is defending itself in a workplace lawsuit filed by a former computer specialist who claims he was demoted and then let go for promoting his views on intelligent design, the belief that a higher power must have had a hand in creation because life is too complex to have developed through evolution alone. This trial was from 2012 was left with the final decision for the man to be given his job back and a lump sum amount of money to cover all fees during the trial(NASA.org). NASA is a smart program with a bunch of master minds behind it, they have shown us many things from the universe, there is so much more they have to show us. From manned missions to unmanned missions, from Apollo to the Gemini Projects, many unbelievable things have happened. They have seen so much that I want to learn more, what about you?