What You Don't Know About NASA

What You Don’t Know About NASA


The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, more commonly known as NASA, was set up in 1958. Its primary goal was (and is) to push the frontiers of space travel, and to gain as much knowledge about the cosmos as possible. Pondering distant stars through ever-advancing telescopes; sending crewed missions above and beyond the atmosphere; searching for signs of extraterrestrial life - if it’s anything to do with space, then NASA is usually involved somewhere. And yet, there’s still a lot about the Agency that isn’t exactly common knowledge.


This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at the story and details of NASA.


On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower founded NASA. With the Soviet Union launching Sputnik 1 in 1957, the space race had begun, and America needed to quickly catch up. NASA was the country’s fresh guiding light in a new age of science and technology.


NASA didn’t just spring out of nowhere, though. It was rooted in an older organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or the NACA, which was itself founded in 1915. Where NASA had space in its sights, the earlier NACA was focussed on the sky. Although the world’s first airplane was an American invention, pioneered by the Wright brothers in 1903, US airplane technology had actually fallen considerably behind Europe’s at the outbreak of World War One, in 1914. The NACA was formed to reinstate the US as an industry leader. Less important (but still quite interesting) is that the NASA acronym was at one point spoken out letter-by-letter, in the same way as the NACA’s was. Before NASA became the world-recognised, two-syllable moniker that it is today.


Following its founding, the NACA carried out a rush of air experiments in the 1910s, ‘20s and ‘30s. It unveiled the US government's first wind tunnel at Langley Air Force Base, in 1920. As such, by the time of the outbreak of World War Two, it was a vital institute for America, having successfully simplified plane types and models, to give the US Air Force an edge over its rivals. After the war, but still before the rebranding and establishment of NASA, the NACA was involved in early trials toward supersonic flight - the likes of which would soon become crucial in the development of fighter jets and, eventually, fleetingly, of Concorde.


The NACA did have time to dip its toes into rocketry, specifically, as well. The first designs that it produced were all missiles, but the NACA was still around as gradually attention moved towards the idea of a crewed rocket mission. Towards the end of the 1950s, the NACA had already formulated a plan to send people into space, and to return them back to Earth. But then came Sputnik, a sudden and dramatic acceleration in the field, and its time was up. All 8,000 or so of those employed at the NACA were absorbed into America’s bold new setup; into NASA.


Since then, NASA has accrued a heap of records when it comes to space science and travel. Over Christmas, in 1968, Apollo 8 became the first mission to successfully send humans out of Earth’s orbit, and into a lunar orbit. Then, just seven months later, Apollo 11 famously managed to land the first-ever humans on the moon. Naturally, walking on the moon wasn’t the only lunar first that Armstrong and Aldrin ticked off. Among other things, they were also the first ever people to eat a meal on another celestial body. The first food of any kind eaten on the moon was actually a communion wafer, eaten by Buzz Aldrin in accordance with his religious views. But, afterwards, and after landing in the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, a dark plane sitting within a lunar basin, Armstrong and Aldrin chowed down on a unique meal of bacon squares, peaches, sugar cookie cubes, a pineapple/grapefruit drink and coffee - all of which was specially prepared to withstand extraterrestrial environments. The bacon squares were reportedly a hit with most astronauts at the time, being a staple on the menu throughout the Apollo Program, and actually well into the 1980s and ‘90s. Unfortunately, today the bacon squares are no more, but the next best item is a freeze-dried pork pattie.


But, away from food, and it was during the early years of NASA that the Kennedy Space Center in Florida became the primary location for rocket launches. It was founded in 1962 and its first major launch was Apollo 4 in November 1967. Apollo 4 was also the first flight of the Saturn V rocket, one of NASA’s most famous vehicles, and the one that would eventually take astronauts to the moon. Apollo 4’s Saturn V was built on-site, in the iconic (and aptly-named) Vehicle Assembly Building, otherwise known as the VAB. The VAB was, at the time, one of the largest buildings ever built… all the better to house the immense machines inside. It still stands as the largest single-storey building on the planet. The American flag that’s painted on its side has stripes that are 9-foot-wide and stars that are 6-foot-wide - which is bigger than a bus! The VAB is so immense in size that there’s room enough for fog clouds to drift in and appear like rain clouds below the ceiling on especially humid days. The main doors to the VAB are the largest in the world at more than 450 feet tall, and they take a whopping 45 minutes to open.


Finally, though, and what many people don’t know is that there’s more to NASA than just space travel. The Agency has catered for a great deal of inventors over its history, which means that hundreds of inventions have passed through it - and not all of them space-related. One of the most fun of all NASA’s inventions is probably the Super Soaker. Dr Lonnie Johnson, a wildly successful inventor, worked at NASA for 12 years from 1979 until 1991. As a result of his time there, he has more than 100 patents in his name, but the Super Soaker is what ultimately made him the most money, and made him most famous. Johnson had been experimenting with a new refrigeration system for NASA, and in so doing he wound up shooting a stream of water across his bathroom. And thus the Super Soaker was born. Another fun fact is that the Nerf Blaster was also developed as an offshoot of the Super Soaker. So, we have Johnson and NASA to thank for a lot of childhood fun.


For more than 75 years, NASA has led the line for space and science research in the US. From the headlines to the logo, it’s one of America’s most famous and recognisable entities. But there are also lesser known chapters in its history relating to the development of flight, unusual food, record-breaking architecture and childhood toys. One last fact that often slips by, however, is that the thing, the planet, that’s studied most of all by NASA… is Earth. The Agency keeps track of all aspects of life on Earth - from the climate to the atmosphere, from the oceans to the ice caps. NASA is a driving force in understanding the history of our world, and also in predicting and planning for the future.


Over just a few short decades, it has been a main player in turning satellite imagery into an everyday expectation. We can now map the continents and the seas with incredible detail. We can track any (and all) changes from hundreds of miles above. These are breakthroughs that perhaps we’ve become desensitized to, but they still provide us with greater insights than any other generation has ever enjoyed. Elsewhere, NASA has long-combed the solar system and the universe for signs of alien life. It has launched people into space in the name of exploration. And it aims to keep doing all of that for a long time yet.


It’s always kept its eyes trained on our own home world, but it’s also always peering out into the great beyond of space.


What’s your favorite NASA fact? What do you think more people should know about? And which breakthroughs do you imagine could be just over the horizon? Be sure to let us know in the comments!