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The Birth of NASA
Editor's Note: This is the 29th in a series of essays
on exploration by Steven J. Dick.
It may
well be argued that NASA has become the world's premier agent for exploration,
carrying on in "the new ocean" of outer space a long tradition of expanding the
physical and mental boundaries of humanity. Fifty years ago, however the agency
that pushed the frontiers of aeronautics, took us to the moon, flew the space
shuttle, built the International Space Station and revealed the secrets of the
cosmos, was in its birth throes, and fundamental decisions were being made that
profoundly shaped all that was to come.
The driving force, of course, was
the launch of Sputnik on Oct. 4, 1957, followed by its even weightier
successors. In the midst of the Cold War, a country that aspired to global
preeminence could not let that challenge pass. Although the United States
already had its own satellite plans in place as part of the International
Geophysical Year, the Russian events spurred the Space Age, and in particular
gave urgency to the founding of an American national space agency.
In the
wake of the Sputniks, events moved quickly toward the development of NASA,
especially considering the weighty issues that had to be resolved. Should there
be a new agency, or one built on an already established institution, such as the
National Science Foundation (NSF), the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), or the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)? Or should it be part of a
military agency - the Army and Air Force were both keen, based on their missile
work. If it was military or civilian agency, then how to divide the tasks
peculiar to each function? Should the new agency include aeronautical
activities? Should it have the power to implement international agreements, how
should those agreements be used as an instrument of foreign policy, and what
should the new agency's relationship be with the State
Department?
Already on Nov. 25, 1957 Senator Lyndon B. Johnson began
hearings on American space and missile activities in the Preparedness
Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This led on
Feb. 6, 1958 to the establishment of a Senate Special Committee on Space and
Aeronautics, with the goal of establishing a space agency, and Senator Johnson
as its chairman. On the House side of Congress the Select Committee on
Astronautics and Space Exploration was created on March 5, chaired by House
majority leader John W. McCormack.
Meanwhile, in the Executive Branch
President Eisenhower had asked his science advisor, James R. Killian, Jr., to
convene the Presidential Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) for deliberations on
the subject. By March 5 Eisenhower had approved a memorandum, dated the same day
and signed by Nelson Rockefeller, chairman of the President's Advisory Committee
on Government Organization, on which Killian also served. It proposed a civilian
space agency built around the NACA, which by this time spent about half its
total effort on space-related projects, including the Vanguard, X-15, and
Defense Department missile programs. In the following weeks legislation was
drafted by the Bureau of the Budget, NACA and Killian's office. One of those
Bureau of Budget drafters, Willis H. Shapley (son of the famous Harvard
astronomer Harlow Shapley), later became a Deputy Associate Administrator of
NASA. Another drafter, Paul G. Dembling - general counsel for the NACA during
the crucial 1957-58 period and later the NASA general counsel - recalled that it
was a high pressure situation "because other agencies [than NACA] were seeking
the mantle, and we didn't know exactly where we all stood." Dembling, who is
still alive and well today, recalls there was no one source for drafting such
legislation, and he relied on past decisions by the General Accounting Office.
The legislation that emerged called for a new agency rather than a strengthened
NACA, responding to the criticism of some that NACA had become too lethargic to
deal with the onrush of events, and that a new start was needed.
On April
2, Eisenhower sent the draft legislation to Congress establishing the "National
Aeronautics and Space Agency." At the behest of Eilene Galloway, who worked for
the Congressional Research Service and served as a consultant to both Senator
Johnson and Congressman McCormack during the drafting of the final Space Act,
the name was changed to "National Aeronautics and Space Administration." It was
her belief that an "Administration" with an "Administrator" would be vested with
more power than a mere "agency" with a "director," and in fact that the new
institution would need that power to coordinate with many other agencies.
Galloway, too, is alive and well today, still offering her reminiscences at age
101.
After Congressional hearings during spring 1958, Congress passed the
legislation and President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space
Act into law on July 29, 1958. Although it had generally been assumed that Hugh
Dryden, the head of the NACA, would be appointed administrator, three weeks
later, on Aug. 19, T. Keith Glennan - the President of Case Institute of
Technology since 1947 and a former member of the Atomic Energy Commission - was
sworn in at the White House as NASA's first Administrator, with Dryden as his
Deputy Administrator. NASA formally opened for business on Oct. 1,
1958.
It is instructive to recall the objectives for NASA that emerged in
section 102 of the final Space Act:
- The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
- The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and
efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;
- The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments,
equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;
- The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be
gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the
utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific
purposes;
- The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in
aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof
to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;
- The making available to agencies directly concerned with national defense
of discoveries that have military value or significance, and the furnishing by
such agencies, to the civilian agency established to direct and control
nonmilitary aeronautical and space activities, of information as to
discoveries which have value or significance to that agency;
- Cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of nations
in work done pursuant to this Act and in the peaceful application of the
results thereof;
- The most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources
of the United States, with close cooperation among all interested agencies of
the United States in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort,
facilities and equipment
The Space Act has been amended many times
since 1958 (see online reference below for details), but these goals have been
little changed. In NASA's Authorization Act for 1985 the expansion of human
knowledge "of the Earth" was added to goal 1, reflecting increased concern about
Earth resources and global climate change. And in the Authorization Act for 1989
a ninth goal was added: "The preservation of the United States preeminent
position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development
related to associated manufacturing processes." Other sections of the Space Act
dealt with the civilian-military coordination, international cooperation, the
demise of the NACA, the transfer of functions from other government agencies,
and intellectual property rights.
Beyond the logistical questions in the
founding of a new space agency were larger issues not fully grasped at the time.
In creating NASA, Pulitzer-Prize historian Walter McDougall argued, Congress was
creating a technocratic institution, where technocracy is defined as "the
institutionalization of technological change for state purposes, that is, the
state-funded and-managed R&D explosion of our time." He saw Sputnik as a
saltation that sparked this technological revolution. McDougall later revised
this point in light of the events of the Space Age. Historian Robert MacGregor
has also recently challenged the view of Sputnik as a technological saltation,
arguing that technocratic ideas of the relation of science to the state were
already well established by this time. In particular he points to the parallels
between the Atomic Energy Commission and NASA, and further argued that "NASA's
rise in the 1960's as an engine of American international prestige was rooted in
atomic diplomacy, and that certain debates in Congress about the new agency were
largely approached from within a framework of atomic energy, thereby limiting
the range of discourse and influencing the shape of the new agency." MacGregor
finds of special importance the sections of the National Aeronautics and Space
Act that were inspired by the Atomic Energy Acts of 1946 and 1954, especially
the relation of the Department of Defense to the new agency, the role of
international cooperation, and the apportionment of intellectual property.
Issues great and small were involved in the founding of NASA. It may truly be
said that NASA has achieved the goals laid out in section 102, sometimes in
spectacular fashion, with the possible exception of objective 4, involving
studies of the long-range benefits and problems related to spaceflight.
That objective is now being undertaken in the NASA History Division, as
witnessed in the recent publication of Societal Impact of Spaceflight (see
http://history.nasa.gov/sp4801-part1.pdf.) and other planned publications.
Perhaps no goal is more important for sustaining a robust space program than
ensuring that society has a vested interest in the aeronautics and space
activities of NASA and the other space agencies that have sprouted up around the
world over the last 50 years.
Further Reading
Galloway,
Eilene, "Sputnik and the Creation of NASA: A Personal Perspective," in NASA:
50 Years of Exploration and Discovery (Faircount, 2008), pp.
48-49.
Goldstein, Edward S., David S. Schuman and Gregory C. La Rosa.
"Present at the Creation: Paul G. Dembling, Author of NASA's Founding
Legislation," in NASA: 50 Years of Exploration and Discovery (Faircount,
2008), pp. 50-51.
Griffith, Alison. The National Aeronautics and Space
Act: A Study of the Development of Public Policy (Washington, D.C.,
1962)
Hall, Cargill, "Origins of U. S. Space Policy: Eisenhower, Open
Skies and Freedom of Space," in Exploring the Unknown, Vol. 1, John M.
Logsdon, editor, pp. 213. ff.
Hunley, J. D., editor. The Birth of
NASA: The Diary of T. Keith Glennan (NASA SP-4105, 1993). Online at http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4105/sp4105.htm
(Glennan was NASA's first Administrator.)
Logsdon, John M., moderator.
Legislative Origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958,
Proceedings of an Oral History Workshop, conducted April 3, 1992. Monographs
in Aerospace History # 8, (NASA History Office, 1998). Online at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/40thann/legislat.pdf,
or a larger file with graphics at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/40thann/legorgns.pdf
MacDougall,
Walter. ... The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space
Age (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985)
MacGregor, Robert R. "Imagining an Aerospace Agency in the Atomic Age,"
in Remembering the Space Age, Steven J. Dick, ed. (NASA History series,
forthcoming)
National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, as amended, with
legislative history showing changes over time, online at http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact-legishistory.pdf
Portree,
David S. F. NASA's Origins and the Dawn of the Space Age, Monographs in
Aerospace History #10 (NASA History Division, September, 1998). Online at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/monograph10/
Rosholt, Robert L. An Administrative History of NASA, 1958-1963
(NASA SP-4101, 1966).
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NASA's top management from 1958-1960 was T. Keith Glennan, Administrator
(center), Hugh L. Dryden, Deputy Administrator (left), and Richard E. Horner,
Associate Administrator (right). This photo, dated March 1, 1960 and probably
taken at NASA's first Headquarters at the Dolley Madison House, also shows the
new seal of NASA above Glennan.
