World History America in Space 1 History of NASA 1 The Moon The Apollo program 2 Voyager 2 Exploration of Mars 3 Bibliography 4 America in Space History of NASA Figure 1 Robert Goddard Father of American Space Program October 1 1958 the official start of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA was the beginning of a rich history of unique scientific and technological achievements in human space flight aeronautics space science and space applications Formed as a result of the Sputnik crisis of confidence NASA inherited the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics NACA and other government organizations and almost immediately began working on options for human space flight NASA s first high profile program was Project Mercury an effort to learn if humans could survive in space followed by Project Gemini which built upon Mercury s successes and used spacecraft built for two astronauts NASA s human space flight efforts then extended to the Moon with Project Apollo culminating in 1969 when the Apollo 11 mission first put humans on the lunar surface After the Skylab and Apollo Soyuz Test Projects of the early and mid 1970s NASA s human space flight efforts again resumed in 1981 with the Space Shuttle program that continues today to help build the International Space Station Building on its NACA roots NASA has continued to conduct many types of cutting edge aeronautics research on aerodynamics wind shear and other important topics using wind tunnels flight testing and computer simulations NASA s highly successful X 15 program involved a rocket powered airplane that flew above the atmosphere and then glided back to Earth unpowered providing Shuttle designers with much useful data The watershed F8 digital fly by wire program laid the groundwork for such electronic flight in many other aircraft including the Shuttle and high performance airplanes that would have been uncontrollable otherwise NASA has also done important research on such topics as lifting bodies wingless airplanes and supercritical wings to dampen the effect of shock waves on transsonic aircraft Additionally NASA has launched a number of significant scientific probes such as the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft that have explored the Moon the planets and other areas of our solar system NASA has sent several spacecraft to investigate Mars including the Viking and Mars Pathfinder spacecraft The Hubble Space Telescope and other space science spacecraft have enabled scientists to make a number of significant astronomical discoveries about our universe NASA also has done pioneering work in space applications satellites NASA has helped bring about new generations of communications satellites such as the Echo Telstar and Syncom satellites NASA s Earth science efforts have also literally changed the way we view our home planet the Landsat and Earth Observing System spacecraft have contributed many important scientific findings NASA technology has also resulted in numerous spin offs in wide ranging scientific technical and commercial fields Overall while the tremendous technical and scientific accomplishments of NASA demonstrate vividly that humans can achieve previously inconceivable feats we also are humbled by the realization that Earth is just a tiny blue marble in the cosmos The Moon The Apollo program The Apollo program included a large number of uncrewed test missions and 11 crewed missions The 11 crewed missions include two Earth orbiting missions two lunar orbiting missions a lunar swingby and six Moon landing missions Figure 2 Buzz Aldrin The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth Six of the missions Apollos 11 12 14 15 16 and 17 achieved this goal Lunar surface experiments included soil mechanics meteoroids seismic heat flow lunar ranging magnetic fields and solar wind experiments Apollos 7 which tested the Command Module and 9 which tested both the Command Module and Lunar Module were Earth orbiting missions Apollos 8 and 10 tested various components while orbiting the Moon and returned photography of the lunar surface Apollo 13 did not land on the lunar surface due to a malfunction but during the brief orbit around the moon the crew were able to collect photographs After the last lunar landing total funding for the Apollo program was about 19 408 134 000 The budget allocation was 34 of the NASA budget Voyager Figure 3 Voyager Mission Lift of available The last two spacecraft of NASA s Mariner series Voyager 1 and 2 were the first in that series to be sent to explore the outer solar system Preceeded by the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions Voyager 1 and 2 were to make studies of Jupiter and Saturn their satellites and their magnetospheres as well as studies of the interplanetary medium An option designed into the Voyager 2 trajectory and ultimately exercised would direct it toward Uranus and Neptune to perform similar studies Although launched sixteen days after Voyager 2 Voyager 1 s trajectory was a faster path arriving at Jupiter in March of 1979 Voyager 2 arrived about four months later in July 1979 Both spacecraft were then directed on to Saturn with arrival times in November 1980 Voyager 1 and August 1981 Voyager 2 Voyager 2 was then diverted to the remaining gas giants Uranus January 1986 and Neptune August 1989 A more detailed table specifying the closest approach distances times for these encounters is Data collected by Voyager 1 and 2 were not confined to the periods surrounding encounters with the outer gas giants with the various fields and particles experiments and the ultraviolet spectrometer collecting data nearly continuously during the interplanetary cruise phases of the mission Data collection continues as the recently renamed Voyager Interstellar Mission searches for the edge of the solar wind s influence the heliopause and exits the solar system Some scientific results of the Voyager mission A comprehensive list of the achievements of Voyager 1 and 2 would be so extensive that space doesn t permit Here then are a very few results that would rank near the top of many such lists Discovery of the Uranian and Neptunian magnetospheres both of them highly inclined and offset from the planets rotational axes suggesting their sources are significantly different from other magnetospheres The Voyagers found 22 new satellites 3 at Jupiter 3 at Saturn 10 at Uranus and 6 at Neptune was found to have active volcanism the only solar system body