Referat Ausarbeitung zum Spezialgebiet Englisch - A History NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

A History of NASA

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Ausarbeitung zum Spezialgebiet Englisch

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 - The origins of the NASA

Chapter 2 - The foundation of the NASA

Chapter 3 - The race for the Moon

Chapter 4 - The Shuttle Program

Chapter 5 -

Chapter 6 - Other Nations' Space Programs

Introduction

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA) is the US government agency responsible for the development of advanced aviation and space technology and for space exploration. It is an independent civilian agency responsible directly to the president of the United States.

NASA's  roots  go  back  to ,  when a  federal  agency  was  needed  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  American aeronautics, which was then lagging behind European developments.

Chapter 1 - The origins of NASA

The National Advisory Comitee for Aeronautics was founded in 9 5. Although it were the American Wright brothers, who made the first controlled flight in an airplane, the United States soon lagged behind the Eurpoeans  in  aviation  techniques.  Because  of World  War  I,  the  Europeans  forced  the  development  of new aircrafts. As a consequence,  scientists within the United States demanded a national organization, which would help the States to keep pace with the rapid developments in aeronautics - the NACA.

For fiscal , the fledgling organization  received a budget of , an annual appropriation  that remained constant for the next five years. This was not much even by standards of that time, but it must be remembered that this was an advisory committee only, "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical solutions."

Once the NACA  isolated a problem,  its study and solution  was  generally done by a government  agency  or university  laboratory.  The  main  committee  of 2  members  met  semiannually  in  Washington.  An  Executive Committee  of seven members,  chosen from the main committee  living in the Washington  area, supervised  the NACA's activities and kept track of aeronautical problems to be considered for action.

The first NACA research center was opened  at Langley in Hampton,  Virginia.  In a wartime environment,  the

NACA was soon busy. It evaluated aeronautical queries from the Army, conducted experiments and ran engine tests. From the beginning the NACA was not a military organization,  however it's research work while World War I focused on military affairs and the Langley Memorial Aeronautical  Laboratory was built on a US Army Base. Soon a small airfield and a wind tunnel for aerodynamics testing were set up. Although after the war, the Army transferred its research facilities to Dayton, Ohio, military influence at Langley remained high. In 1 20 the NACA owned a airfield, a wind tunnel, a small dynamometer  lab, a warehouse  and a administration  building. With a total staff of 1 people there was plenty room to grow. The Universities over the country began to offer education in aeronautics theory and engineering. Young engineers joined the NACA and the Langley's staff went up to 00 in 9 5. During the ' 0s and 30s, NACA research turned the art of aeronautics into a disciplined engineering profession. Military and private airplane designs greatly benefited from NACA's research, which led to improved wing shapes and engines and retractable landing gears. With more and more commercial airlines in business, the research also concentrated on maximum passenger safety and comfort.

After a while, a new  field  of aeronautical  research emerged: Rocketry.  Inspired by Jules  Verne  and others, scientists  around   the  world  became  increasingly   interested   in  Rocketry.  NACA  conducted  some rocket experiments, which not only led to the use of rockets by the United States armed services in World War II, but later also led to the development  of jet propulsion  engines,  which  replaced  the older  propeller  engines.  The NACA - born in response to European progress in aeronautics - benefited through the employment of Europeans, and profited from a continuous interaction with the European community.

Hitler's  Germany  stopped  to share its research results in expectation  of the second  World  War. The

"Verein für Raumschiffahrt", which employed the famous Wernher von Braun, was very successful in developing rockets and jet propulsion and therefore the Germans were the only nation, which used ground to ground rockets during the war (The V-2 rocket, Vengance-2). They also put the only WWII jetfighter plane in the skies, the Messerschmitt Me 62 - in 9 5, shortly before Germanys surrender and therefore too late to play an active role in the european air war.

For the NACA, the war was a pretty good reason to let the government multiply their resources and fundings. For example:  the NACA counted  26 staff at Langley in . After the war, in 5 total personnel  at Langley exceeded 0 people. In 1 a second  Laboratory, the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in California, followed in 1 42 by the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory in Ohio were established. NACA's success in producing fast and manoeuvrable planes gave the US Air Force the deciding edge in aerial combat during WWII.

In October 9 2, America's first jet plane, took to the air over a remote area of the California desert. There were no official NACA representatives present. The NACA, in fact, did not even know the aircraft existed, and the engine was based entirely on a top secret British design. After the war, the failure of the United States to develop jet engines and supersonic designs was generally blamed on the NACA. Critics argued that the NACA, as America's

premier aeronautical establishment  (one which presumably led the world in successful aviation technology) had somehow allowed leadership to slip to the British and the Germans during the late 1 3 s and during World War II. The US secret service initiated the  "Operation Paperclip", a high-level government plan to scoop up leading German scientists and engineers during the closing months of World War II.

Following the war, the NACA, with German scientists know-how, increasingly focused on jet propulsion and the

attainment of even higher altitudes and speeds. In 1 47 the NACA X-1 (eXperimental jet ) was the first plane to brake the sound barrier and go supersonic (Mach 1 equals the speed of sound. The designation is named after the Austrian physicist, Ernst Mach).

Helicopters, introduced into limited combat service at the end of World War II, entered both military and civilian service  in the postwar  era. The value of helicopters  in medical evacuation  was demonstrated  in Korea, and a variety of helicopter operations proliferated in the late 9 0s. The NACA flight-tested new designs to help define handling qualities. Using wind tunnel experience, researchers also developed a series of special helicopter airfoil sections, and a rotor test tower aided research in many other areas.

All of this postwar  aeronautical  activity received  respectful  and enthusiastic  attention from press and public. Although the phenomenon of flight continued to enjoy extensive press coverage, events in the late 9 0s suddenly caused aviation to share the limelight with space flight.

Among the legacies of World War II was a glittering array of new technologies spawned by the massive military effort. Atomic energy, radar, radio telemetry, the computer, the large rocket, and the jet engine seemed destined to shape the world's destiny in the next three decades and heavily influence the rest of the century. The world's political order had been drastically altered by the war. Much of Europe and Asia were in ashes. On opposite sides of the  world stood the United States and the Soviet  Union, newly  made into superpowers.  It soon  became apparent  that they would  test each other's mettle many times before a balance  of power stabilized.  And each nation moved quickly to exploit the new technologies.

The atomic bomb was the most obvious and most immediately threatening technological change from World War II. Both superpowers sought the best strategic systems that could deliver the bomb across the intercontinental distances that separated them. Jet-powered bombers were an obvious extension of the wartime and both nations began putting them

into  service.  The  intercontinental rocket  held  great  theoretical  promise, but  seemed  much further down  the

technological road. Atomic bombs were bulky and heavy. A rocket to lift such a payload would be enormous in size and expense.  The Soviet Union doggedly  went ahead with attempts to build such rockets. The US Army imported  Wernher  von Braun and the German engineers  who had created the wartime V-2 rockets to help to develop the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, a project that had been dormant for four years. Fiscal 9 3 saw the Department of Defense for the first time spend more than $1 million on missile research. By the mid-

s NACA had modern research facilities that had cost a total of $ 00 million, and a staff totaling 2 0. Against  the background  of the Cold War" between the United States and the USSR and the national priority given to military rocketry, the NACA's sophisticated  facilities inevitably became involved.  With each passing year it was enlarging its missile research in proportion to the old mission of aerodynamic research.

As part of the US participation  in the forthcoming International Geophysical Year, it was proposed to launch a

small satellite into orbit around the Earth. When USSR announced,  that they also would launch a satellite into orbit, the space race was extending beyond boosters and payloads to issues of national prestige.

In 19 7, when the "beep, beep" signal from Sputnik 1 was heard around the world the Soviet Union had orbited the world's first manmade satellite.

When the US Army finally launched their Explorer 1 satellite, the payload weighed only 2 pounds against the

1100 pounds  of Sputnik 2. An experiment aboard  the satellite reported  mysterious saturation of its radiation counters at 5 4 miles altitude. Professor James A. van Allen, the scientist who had built the experiment, thought this suggested the existence of a dense belt of radiation around the Earth at that altitude - the van Allen radiation belts.

The US government sought for an agency, which would help the United States to catch up with the fast advancing USSR space program. Either the Department of Defense or the NACA should begin with the development of a national space program.

The  NACA  research  team  had  come  up  with a solid,  longterm,  scientifically  based  proposal  for a blend  of aeronautic and space research. Its concept for manned spaceflight, for example, envisioned a ballistic spacecraft with a blunt reentry shape, backed by a world-encircling  tracking system, and equipped with dual automatic and manual  controls  that  would  enable  the astronaut  gradually  to  take  over  more  and  more  of the flying  of his spacecraft.  Also  NACA  offered  reassuring  experience  of long,  close  working  relationships  with  the  military services in solving their research problems, while at the same time translating the research into civil applications. But NACA's greatest political asset was its peaceful, research-oriented  image. President Eisenhower and Senator Johnson and others in Congress were united in wanting above all to avoid projecting cold war tensions into the new arena of outer space.

Chapter 2 - The foundation of the NASA

On  29  July 8  President  Eisenhower  signed  the  National  Aeronautics  and  Space  Act  of   .  The  act established  a  broad   charter   for  civilian   aeronautical   and  space   research   with  unique   requirements   for dissemination of information,  absorbed  the existing NACA into  the  new  organization  as  its nucleus, and empowered broad  transfers from other  government  programs.  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration came into being on 1 October 9 8. All this made for a very busy spring and summer for the people in the small NACA Headquarters in Washington. Once the general outlines of the new organization were clear,  both a space  program  and a new  organization  had  to  be  charted.  The  NACA's  assistant  director  for aerodynamic research, headed a committee to plan the new organization.

Talks  with  the  Advanced  Research  Projects  Agency  identified  the  military  space  programs  that  were  space science-oriented and were obvious transfers to the new agency. Plans were formulated for building a new center for  space  science  research,  satellite  development,  flight  operations,  and  tracking:  The  Goddard  Space  Flight Center was dedicated in March 9 1. The 8 00 people, three laboratories  (now renamed research centers) and two stations, with a total facilities value of 0 million and an annual budget of 1 0 million were transferred intact  to  NASA.  There  followed  an intense  two-year  period  of organization,  build  up, fill in, planning,  and general catch  up. Only one week  after NASA  was formed,  Congress gave the go ahead  to Project Mercury, America's  first manned spaceflight  program. The Space Task Group was established  at Langley to get the job done. The new programs brought into the organization were slowly integrated into the NACA nucleus. Many spaceminded  specialists were drawn into NASA, attracted by the exciting new vistas. Long-range planning was accelerated. The first NASA 10-year plan was presented to Congress in February 9 0. It called for an expanding program on a broad front: manned  spaceflight  (first orbital,  then circumlunar),  scientific  satellites  to measure radiation and other features of the near-space environment, lunar probes to measure the lunar space environment and to photograph the Moon, planetary probes to measure and to photograph Mars and Venus, weather satellites to improve our knowledge of Earth's broad weather patterns, continued aeronautical research, and development of larger launch vehicles for lifting heavier payloads. The cost of the program was expected to vary between 1 billion and 1 5 billion per year over the 10-year period.

High speed airplane research continued and led to the NASA's X-15, which attained a speed of Mach

6,7 which is 70 km/hr, the fastest speed ever reached by a jet. The X-15 contributed  heavily to research in spaceflight as well as to high-speed aircraft research. Using  the powerful X-15 engines, the first vertical takeoff and landing plane was developed.

A 40 0-person Development Operations Division, headed by Wernher von Braun, was transferred from the Army to NASA along with the big Saturn booster project.

Chapter 3 - The race for the Moon

Against  the background of the "Cold  War",  US President  J.F. Kennedy announced in 9 1,  for the obvious reason of gaining prestige, that the United States would dedicate this decade to bringing a man up to the moon and returning him to Earth. The job was handed over to NASA, the United States' civilian Agency for Space Exploration.

The  NASAs  conquest  of  the  moon  was  divided  in  three  programs:  the  Mercury  Program  and  the  Gemini Program, whichs purpose it was to test the limits of NASAs space vehicles and to train astronauts for the final Apollo Program.

    The Mercury Program

The Mercury program was the earliest NASA project to put an astronaut into space. It utilized one-person, bell- shaped  capsules  that  were  boosted  into  orbits 1  to 83  km above  the Earth.   The  capsules  reentered  the atmosphere ballistically, and parachutes were deployed on the final descent to ocean splashdown.   The capsules were then recovered by U.S. naval vessels and helicopters. The project successfully flew two suborbital and four orbital manned missions.

The project cost slightly more than 0 million and involved the technical skills of more than 2 million men and women in the research, development, and testing of the spacecraft, its launch vehicles, and a worldwide tracking and communications network.

Although manned spaceflight had been studied since the late 1 4 s, serious development of a manned satellite

was not considered by Congress until after the Soviet Union launched Sputniks 1 and 2 in October and November

.   In March , the NACE proposed a wingless,  manned  satellite that could follow a ballistic  path to

reenter the atmosphere  without exposing the crew to excessively  high temperatures  or dangerous  acceleration. The chief points of this proposal were incorporated into the Mercury program.

The  size and weight  of the Mercury  spacecraft  were  dictated  by the lifting  capability  of the intercontinental

ballistic  missiles  of the US Army. The capsule was designed  to weigh less than 0 kg, because  the lifting capacities of these missiles was limited.

The astronaut reclined on a contour couch designed to provide protection from accelerations  of as much as 0 gravities.

The attitude, or position, of the capsule was controlled by an array of 18 hydrogen peroxide  gas thrusters.  These could pitch the spacecraft up or down, yaw it left or right, or roll it. The pilot could fire them by means of a hand controller or leave attitude control to an autopilot.

Following  the launch,  the most critical part of the flight was the firing of the braking rockets. The pilot was required to put the capsule in a precise attitude for retrofire in order to land in the sea near the recovery ships.

During  19 0-61, the Mercury capsule  was launched by a Redstone  missile  on a series of suborbital flights  that  tested  the  integrity  of its  structure  and  the  effectiveness  of the  launch  escape  tower.  The  tower contained a powerful rocket that would pull the spacecraft away from the launch vehicle in the event the launcher failed during liftoff. It was activated only once, when the Redstone launcher failed in November 9 0. The tower rocket pulled the spacecraft  high above the Atlantic Ocean so that it could parachute into the water.

One of the first Mercury flights took a 1 kg chimpanzee named Ham on a suborbital flight, from which he was recovered unharmed.

During other manned suborbital flights the control systems of the spacecraft were tested.

Following a series of Mercury unmanned orbital test flights Lt. Col. John H. GLENN, Jr., flew a three-orbit (4 hr

55 min) mission (1 6 ) in the spacecraft  he named Friendship 7. As the first American  to fly in orbit, Glenn received a hero's welcome on the same scale as that accorded Charles A. Lindbergh after his New York-Paris flight in .

Project Mercury ended with a 22-orbit ( 4 hr 20 min) flight in 1 6 .

Four  years and 0  months  after NASA  was created,  the  first  American  manned space program had been completed.

     The Gemini Program

The  Gemini  program  was a series  of  piloted  spaceflights  in  the  mid-1960s.    The  series  was  authorized  by Congress in 9 1 as an intermediate  step, between the Mercury Program and the Apollo Program, in the U.S. effort to land on the Moon.  It was called Gemini,  which means 'twins'  in Latin, because  each piloted  flight carried two astronauts into orbit.

The earlier Mercury program had demonstrated that a trained astronaut could fly in orbit for up to 4 hours.  The NASA next had to determine whether trained crew members could endure the weightlessness  of orbital freefall long  enough  to  survive a journey  to  the  Moon  and  back.  This  was  one  important  objective  of the  Gemini program. Others were to develop rendezvous and docking techniques needed for the lunar mission and to train personnel in their use.

A highly maneuverable spacecraft was required, with an elaborate life-support system that could maintain a crew for up to 4 days. A NASA team designed a two-person spacecraft, that fulfilled all the needs it was created for. Within five years, the program had achieved  all of its objectives.  Its total cost was 8 0 ,  including

0 0 0  for the spacecraft, 8 0 0 0  for launch vehicles, and 7 0 00  for support facilities. The flight series used the 00 global tracking and communications network established in Project Mercury.

The first piloted Gemini mission, Gemini 3, was flown in March 1 6 . Five days earlier, the Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov had spent ten minutes outside Vokshod 2 in the first demonstration of extravehicular activity (EVA) during orbital flight. This feat was duplicated in June on the four-day, 2-orbit flight of Gemini 4. The NASA astronaut  remained outside for 0 minutes in a 4-kg space suit designed for EVA.

The program also attempted to achieve rendezvous and docking with another vehicle in orbit.  The original plans

called for a Gemini spacecraft to dock with an AGENA rocket.  The first attempt was canceled in October 1965, when the Agena blew up after having been launched  by an Atlas missile. After an unsuccessful effort during which the launch rocket sputtered but did not lift off, Gemini 6 was sent into orbit in December 1 6 .

Meanwhile,  the Gemini 7 spacecraft  had been launched  and it was decided that Gemini 7 would serve as the vehicle with which Gemini 6 would rendezvous. Gemini 6 was piloted within one foot of Gemini 7 on December

15. This was the first successful rendezvous in space. The crew of Gemini 7 went on to set a new endurance record in space: they made a controlled landing in the Atlantic on December , , after 30 hours and 5 minutes in orbit. Their mission proved that trained men could endure a round trip to the Moon. On its 2 0 orbits of the Earth, Gemini 7 had flown 0 times the distance to the Moon.

Rendezvous and docking with an Agena target rocket was achieved on March 6, 9 6, during the mission of Gemini ,  by  NASA  astronaut  Neil  A.  Armstong.  The  mission  was  abruptly  terminated,  however,  when a malfunction in the Gemini "Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System" thrusters forced the crew to undock and make an emergency landing in the western Pacific Ocean.

Overheating and face-plate fogging, which had interfered with early EVA (extravehicular activity) efforts, were overcome  by Air Force Maj. Edwin E. "Buzz"  Aldrin,  Jr , on the flight of Gemini 1 .  After he and Lovell docked with an Agena rocket, Aldrin succeeded in performing 2 hours and 9 minutes of continuous work outside the spacecraft.  The splashdown of Gemini 2 on Nov. , 9 6, ended the program.

    The Apollo Program

The Apollo program was the successful conclusion of the NASAs effort to achieve, within the decade, the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.   It followed the Gemini manned-flight  program conducted  in 7  to  develop  the  necessary  techniques  of  orbiting,  docking,  and  extravehicular  activity (EVA).   The main elements  of the Apollo  project were the three-man Apollo spacecraft;   the two-man Lunar Excursion Module or Lunar Module and the Saturn family of rockets. These units made up the first manned, interplanetary transportation system. Using this system, astronauts landed on the Moon, where they explored and collected samples at six sites on the near side between July 9 9 and the end of December 9 2. The total cost of developing and operating the Apollo-Saturn transportation system in the lunar program was 25 billion.

Between October , when the Apollo-Saturn transportation system underwent its first full space test, and July

197 , when it was used for the last time, the NASA launched 5 manned Apollo-Saturn flights. During the testing period three fatalities occurred on the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, but none in actual flight. Launched July 6, 1 6 , Apollo 11 made the first manned lunar landing on July 2 . As Lt. Col. Michael Collins orbited the Moon in the mother ship Columbia, Neil Armstrong and Col. Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr , touched down in a region called "Sea of Tranquility",  in the Lunar Module Eagle with the historic report: "Houston,  Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed " Armstrong was the first out. Dropping the last meter from the ladder, he said: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" (NASA later reported that the word "a" had been lost in transmission).

On the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin erected the American flag and set up scientific instruments, including a laser beam reflector, a seismometer  that later transmitted  evidence of a moonquake,  and a sheet of aluminum foil to trap Solar Wind particles. The astronauts took soil and rock photographs and collected 4 kg of rock and dirt samples. Armstrong, the first out and the last back into the Lunar Module, spent 2 hours and 3 minutes outside. After Armstrong and Aldrin returned to Columbia in the ascent stage of the Eagle, Collins fired the Apollo main engine and lifted the vessel out of lunar orbit for the return to Earth. The ascent stage of the Eagle was left in lunar orbit. The crew landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 2 , 1 6 , reaching the NASAs goal of visiting the moon within the 0's.

After the successful moon landing of Apollo 1 , where 3 kg of rocks were picked up and returned to Earth, the

Apollo 3 mission failed.

Two days after Apollo 3 was launched in 1 7 , an oxygen tank exploded in the Service Module and crippled the vessel's power and life support systems so badly that a planned landing in the Fra Mauro formation of the Moon was canceled. The crew used the descent engine of the Lunar Module Aquarius to accelerate the crippled spacecraft  around the Moon and back to Earth.   Using Aquarius as a lifeboat, they returned to the vicinity of Earth,   entered   the  Command   Module,   and  landed   it  safely  on  April 7.  Investigation   showed   that a thermostatically controlled switch had failed and allowed the oxygen tank to overheat.

The  Apollo  Program,  which  started  during a time of intense  competition  between  the United  States  and the USSR, ended in a demonstration  of detente in space:  a joint orbital flight of the Apollo and Soyuz spaceships, known as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Technically, the joint mission in low Earth orbit demonstrated intership crew transfer and space rescue. The total cost to NASA of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was 2 0 million.

The vessels docked over a spot in the Atlantic Ocean some 0 km west of Portugal on July , 9 2. During the next two days, the crews made four transfers between the two ships and completed five planned experiments. The nine-day mission was the last one of the Apollo program.

Eleven missions of the Apollo Program were missions in the lunar landing program, including two test flights in

low Earth orbit, two test flights in lunar orbit, six landings, and one circumlunar flight, during which the planned landing was aborted (Apollo 1 ).

The question, why the U S. put a man on the moon before the USSR did, is easy to answer: The USSR had powerful boosters at their disposal and therefore didn't need to minimize the weight of their spacecrafts. The NASA benefited  from the low weight of their spacecrafts,  which made it possible to build the Lunar Module, which could land and then take off from the Moon's surface.

Chapter 4 - The Shuttle Program

The NASAs  Space Shuttle  is a reusable  spacecraft  designed  to be launched  into orbit by rockets and then to return to the Earth s surface by gliding down and landing on a runway.   The Shuttle was selected in the early

1970s as the principal space launcher and carrier vehicle to be developed by the NASA.  It was planned as a replacement  for  the  expensive,  expendable  booster  rockets  used  since  the  late s  for  launching  major commercial and governmental  satellites. Together with launch facilities, mission control and supporting centers, and a tracking and data-relay satellite system, it would complete NASA's new Space Transportation System.

After various delays, the program got under way in the early 9 0s. Despite a number of problems,  the craft

demonstrated its versatility in a series of missions until, in January 9 6, a fatal Shuttle disaster during launch forced a long delay until the program was resumed late in 9 8.