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How NASA Was Born 60 Years Ago From Panic Over a 'Second Moon'

posted by chromas on Monday July 30 2018, @04:20AM   
from the that's-no-moon dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Sixty years ago, on July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, paving the way for the official opening of NASA's doors just a few months later, on Oct. 1.

The drive to create an American civilian space agency began with the shocking revelation on Oct. 4, 1957, that the Soviet Union had beaten the US to the punch and launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, aboard an intercontinental ballistic missile. The USSR was quick to tout its success in launching Earth's "second moon."

"Sputnik 1 was a phenomenon: You could go see it in your backyard," recalled physicist and engineer Guy Stever, who was on the faculty of MIT at the time, in a 1992 oral history workshop on the origins of the law.

Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/how-nasa-got-its-start-60-years-ago-sputnik-eisenhower/

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Original Submission

• Re:Pah Re:Pah (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @04:12PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @04:12PM (#714784)

  Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!)

  Obviously, you've already been subverted. If you really were in on the Truth, then you would know that the Sun rotates around the earth.

  Parent

• Re:Pah (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday July 31 2018, @02:33PM

  by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday July 31 2018, @02:33PM (#715195) Journal

  If you really were in on the Truth, then you would know that the Sun Universe rotates around the earth.

  FTFY

  --
  This sig for rent.

  Parent