hello I
Bondurant your host for our series 25 years of progress during this 13 part
series we see some of the highlights of NASA the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration since its official founding on October 1 1958 what is happening another American
science and medicine the year before NASA is born
well 1957 is the year the American Cancer Society reports a high
correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer and new element nobelium
102 is disclosed by the Argonne National Labor
atory in Lemont Illinois in
overseas on October 4 1957 the Soviet Union launched a Sputnik 1 the first
artificial satellite the Soviets launched is for the International
Geophysical Year or igy the geophysical year is 18 months from July 1957 to
December 1958 more than 70 nations and as many as 30,000 scientists cooperate
to investigate the world and its environment spudnick one concerns Americans because
of far-reaching military and technical implications of the launch less than a
month after t
he first but Nick the Russians launched a second Sputnik which
weighs about a half a ton and carries a dog as a passenger the second Sputnik causes even more
concern in America because of the large size of the satellite during I G why the
United States plans to launch a Vanguard satellite which weighs just a little
over three pounds the attempt to launch the Vanguard on December 6 1957 ends in
failure and a ball of flame and wreckage kiki--the Clinton is the first
administrator of NASA he is ask
ed why NASA was formed
I'd say fairly easy question to answer Sputnik on October 4th 1957 as I recall
the Russians launched the fairly heavy object into orbit and that caught us
really by surprise a vanguard project had gotten underway in 1955 as I recall
it to the part of the igy program International Geophysical Year program
but it wasn't anywhere near ready they had I think scheduled some launches late
that year that is in 1958 but it wasn't clear that they were going to be able to
fly them t
here was another competitor which had really never been recognized
that was the army with their Jupiter which together with some upper stage
solid rockets developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California
finally was the vehicle which was which launched a satellite for the US early in
1959 and the satellite was called Explorer one let's go back to after
Sputnik success the Vanguard spectacular failure when Major General John Medeiros and dr.
Wernher von Braun and their team at the Army Re
dstone Arsenal are given their
long-sought chance a go-ahead to launch an American satellite they will use
their flight proven Jupiter sea rocket launcher
we are at Cape Canaveral at late January 1958 as the covered satellite is placed
atop the Jupiter seemed poised on pad 26 for firing Explorer 1 is to be about 30
pounds in orbit severe winds a la force a two-day postponement then on January
31st 1958 the United States answers the Soviet challenging space explorer makes a major discovery a
radi
ation belt around the earth dr. James Van Alen at the University of Iowa
identifies the region the discovery of the Van Allen belt is an important
finding of the International Geophysical Year during a satellite television
program broadcast in 1978 dr. Ernst tooling ER director of science for dr.
Verner von Braun makes this statement about the launch of Explorer 1 it was a
gate that opened into a new land we hoped at that time that we will make
progress and achieve many more things in space beyo
nd launching a small satellite
I'm going to be honest though and say that at that time we did even not think
it possible that 20 years later there may have been 12 men walking on the moon
and coming back to earth in good shape many of the dreams which we had at that
time were fulfilled but many other dreams which meant many many
achievements were accomplished which we even did not dare to dream at that time
however when we look forward now turned the next 20 years I have the feeling
that the bes
t is yet to come the United States space effort before the launch of
Explorer 1 is fragmented Navy Army Air Force National Science Academy and NACA
President Eisenhower appoints James Killian to be science advisor just after
the first Sputnik launch Keith Glennon recollects the writing of the Space Act
which forms NASA my recollection would be that mr. Killian who was the
president's science advisor had been appointed almost immediately following
the launch of Sputnik and P sack the president's
Science Advisory Committee
and I suspect mr. Lyndon Johnson on the hill did a
sort of a cooperative job in putting together the Space Act they had as a
model the Atomic Energy Act and indeed if you compare the two you find a good
deal of similarity in many of the clauses in the two acts well what were
the major implications of the Space Act they separately said that we were to
pursue the development of activities in space for the benefit of all mankind we
were to do it as a civilian agency we we
re to be responsive to the military in
the sense that if we found in our developments some gadgets some
information that would be of value to the military we are bound to give it to
them and that that was really the thrust of this act we were also told that we
should pursue international activities and this is I think an extension of this
for the benefit of all mankind the Space Act is signed into law by President
Eisenhower on July 29 1958 and on October 1 1958 NASA comes into being
Glennon rec
alls Eisenhower's feelings about space he was not a space cadet he
used to say does he look over shorter and say you know Keith that moons been
there a long time it's gonna be there great many eons yet and we'll get there
one day but it isn't necessary we break our necks and break the budget to get
there now okay what about congressional support at the time rational support was
really very good as a matter of fact they were pushing us I don't think in my
20 months there that I ever had a budget
proposed to them that they didn't want
to add something to my stock answer was I have
study this we presented you with the budget which is what we think we can
usefully use if we need any more you may be certain I'll come right back to you
that seemed to satisfy them before NASA is born Keith Glennon is president of
case Institute of Technology and former Commissioner of the Atomic Energy
Commission then Eisenhower nominates him to be first
NASA Administrator in August 1958 with dr. Hugh Dryden
his deputy and NASA is
formed from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Glennon
explains and we did inherit the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
operation NACA as it was then called of which Louis Laboratories would one there
were four or five such laboratories three big ones
Ames Langley and Louis and one at Wallops Island in Virginia and one out
in Edwards Air Force Base in California but we had 8,000 well-trained loyal
dedicated people in NACA and they formed the base on
which we erected NASA so we
were very well endowed NACA was formed in 1915 to supervise and direct the
scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical
solution NACA was required to direct and conduct research and experiments in
aeronautics the committee was responsible for many of the advances in
u.s. aviation through 1958 some space type research is done in later years but
emphasis was on airplane research again Glennon tells us what happened in NACA
space research ma
CIA had been doing development work largely at Langley as I
recall it on the shape of the select might be used in a an upper-bound
flight like actually mercury started out to be and found the intimate in orbit
the problems of trying to get adequately capable people in a variety of fields
meant that we had to look other than in NACA and it became apparent very early
on that our real limitation was in the launch vehicle business that booster
rocket as we then called we really didn't have any we'v
e been using
sounding rockets small things that went up curated information and telemetered
it back to the United States to the ground but we didn't have anything that
really would lift very much with any degree of surety so I guess it was in
family in November might be like late October 1958 that I made a trip to to
Huntsville with Hugh Dryden my deputy and one of the very very great men in
this space program his name cannot and will not ever be forgotten we came back
it is clear that von Braun
had a real strong team there very capable we did
try to get that laboratory or part of it I didn't want the whole thing they had
work going on for the army the Pershing missile wasn't in development at the
time and they were they had as their really scientific support the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory managed by the Cal tank out on the west coast near Pasadena
dr. Glennon is successful in his effort to continue the job of building the new
NASA organization of officials transfer JPL the Jet
Propulsi
on Laboratory in Pasadena to NASA and the role of the California
Institute of Technology as JPL manager continues about a year later officials
transfer a large segment of the army operation at Huntsville to NASA and
workers build it into the Marshall Space Flight Center only a week after NASA
comes to life doctor Glennon approves the first u.s. manned spaceflight
program Project Mercury scientists developed the mercury capsule shape
through tests workers do Windtunnel tests a small and large sca
le models
covering speeds from 0 to 18,000 miles per hour researchers fire small models of the
capsule in a supersonic pre-flight allistic gun range the gun sends the
one-inch model down a 30-foot instrumented range of recording stations
the model goes 10,000 miles per hour as a model speeds down the gun range barrel
photographs and shadow graphs are taken this shadow graph shows air flow around
the model workers develop boiler plate versions of the mercury capsules for
tests this first test is
a parachute drop test
from an Air Force c-130 the capsule slides out of the planes cargo door on a
sled a sled releases a charge injects a drone parachute not only is NASA working on manned space
travel but from early on scientists launched space science probes workers
launched the pioneer one probe toward the moon about a week after NASA comes
into being a lunar TV scanner is aboard because of an error in earn-out velocity
the probe does not reach the moon but reaches an altitude of almost 71
t
housand miles and the craft re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the South
Pacific on October 12 1958 Lennon remembers that first pioneer I guess we
sort of broke our pick on some of those I recall those were the pioneers as I
recall it and I recall how how overjoyed we were when we could talk to that
little bit of a thing it's about this big it's old-fashioned
two hundred thousand miles out in space and get the information back it never
did reach the PERT the moon or it could go ahead orbit ar
ound the moon it failed
and it fell back to earth but at the same time the Soviets could never talk
to their birds more than ten thousand miles up so we were beginning to get a
little sense that we were doing things right
that we were look getting better all the time and that was indeed the the
objective of NASA in those days push the state-of-the-art as hard as you
could but don't waste your muscle the United States tries thirty-seven
satellite launchers by December 1959 less than a third are s
uccessful as a
result NASA begins to instill a new sense of rigid quality control to check
and check and check again rocket components Wells valves pumps materials
and so on over time the quality control Pro
works in other areas of science and engineering the first domestic jet
airline service begins between New York and Miami on December 10 1958 and in
August 1959 plans to explore Antarctica in 1959 and 1960 are announced in
September 1959 severo ochoa and arthur kornberg received the Nobel Pri
ze in
medicine for chemical heredity or meanwhile the first seven US astronauts
are chosen early in 1959 NASA selects a team of seven engineer pilots for
Project Mercury M scott Carpenter L Gordon Cooper John Glenn Virgil Grissom
Walter schirra Alan Shepard and Donal Slayton the astronauts prepare for
flight after two hours the astronaut comes out of a mold used to make a
flight couch to fit his body shape early on veteran test pilots looked down on
the role of the pilot in Project Mercury but t
he mercury pilot plays an active
role he controls the capsules attitude and pitch roll and yaw as well as
operating navigation and communication systems in all mercury flights the pilot
proves to be essential to the success of the mission he operates all primary
flight controls and initiates retro rockets to fire beginning the descent to
a landing whirling in a centrifuge cab astronauts learn important lessons about
how they react to the g-loads of emergency aborts meanwhile workers test
an esca
pe system for the early Mercury capsule the pilot must be able to escape
from the mercury launch site in case of an emergency in this unmanned test a
16-foot Tower with a solid rocket sends the capsule safely away during this test a rhesus monkey is
aboard at more than 1300 miles per hour
pressure sensing devices start the escape extensive mercury program research and
development continues workers launched a big Joel mercury test capsule nearly
into orbit to test reentry into the earth's atmosph
ere and that las' booster carries the
capsule to an altitude of 100 miles and nearly to orbital speed from the recovery ships the capsule
appears as a flaming fireball as it streaks back into the atmosphere patrol
aircraft fly to the impact area and pick up the capsules recovery signals to
destroyers race to the area the Navy ship strong makes the pick up the
capsule survives its reentry in excellent condition oh there is of the
space program are successful in 1959 by August 10 of the 17 launche
s our good also in August NASA launches an explorer
6 which functions well in all respects Explorer 6 detects a large ring of
electrical current circulating the earth during this first program of our 13 part
series we've seen how the launch of sputnik in late 1957 encouraged the
birth of NASA in October 1958 early NASA projects continued through 1959 lessons
learned from early difficulties lead us to ever more successful performance next program we pick up the NASA saga in
1960 when goals are st
ill being set I'm Lynn binder and tragically under all
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