Badan Penerbangan dan Antariksa: Perbedaan antara revisi

[[ImageBerkas:Mercury 3.jpg|thumb|212px|right|[[May 5]], [[1961]] launch of
Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury 3 capsule ''[[Freedom 7]]'' with
[[Alan Shepard Jr.]] on the United States' first human flight into
sub-orbital space. (Atlas rockets were used to launch Mercury's orbital
missions.)]]

Following the [[Soviet space program]]'s launch of the world's first
man-made satellite (''[[Sputnik 1]]'') on [[October 4]], [[1957]], the
attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space
efforts. The [[Congress of the United States|U.S. Congress]], alarmed by
the perceived threat to American security and technological leadership,
urged immediate and strong action; President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. Several months of
debate produced agreement that a new federal agency was needed to
conduct all nonmilitary activity in space.

On [[July 29]], [[1958]], President Eisenhower signed the National
Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA). When it began operations on [[October
1]], [[1958]], NASA consisted mainly of the four laboratories and some
8,000 employees of the government's 46-year-old research agency for
aeronautics, the [[National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics]] (NACA).

Once Mercury proved that manned spaceflight was possible, the [[Apollo
program]] was launched to try to do interesting work in space and
possibly put men around (but not on) the [[Moon]]. The direction of the
Apollo program was radically altered following President [[John F.
Kennedy]]'s announcement on [[May 25]], [[1961]] that the [[United
States]] should commit itself to "landing a man on the Moon and
returning him safely to the [[Earth]]" by 1970. Thus Apollo became a
program to land men on the Moon. The [[Gemini program]] was started
shortly thereafter to provide an interim spacecraft to prove techniques
needed for the now much more complicated Apollo missions.

[[ImageBerkas:Aldrin Apollo 11.jpg|thumb|175px|left|[[Buzz Aldrin]] walks on
the surface of the Moon during [[Apollo 11]].]]

After eight years of preliminary missions, including NASA's first loss
of astronauts with the [[Apollo 1]] launch pad fire, the Apollo program
achieved its goals with [[Apollo 11]] which landed [[Neil Armstrong]]
and [[Buzz Aldrin]] on the moon's surface on [[July 20]], [[1969]] and
returned them to Earth safely on [[July 24]]. Armstrong's first words
upon stepping out of the [[Apollo Lunar Module|''Eagle'' lander]]
captured the momentousness of the occasion: "That's one small step for
[a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Ten more men would [[list of lunar
astronauts|set foot on the Moon]] by the end of the Apollo program in
December 1972.

Having lost the space race, the [[Soviet Union]] had, along with the
USA, changed its approach. On [[July 17]], [[1975]] an Apollo craft
(finding a new use after the cancellation of [[Apollo 18]]) was docked
to the Soviet Soyuz 19 space craft. Although the Cold War would last
many more years, this was a critical point in NASA's history and much of
the international co-operation in space exploration that exists today
has its genesis here. America's first space station, [[Skylab]],
occupied NASA from the end of Apollo until the late 1970s.

[[ImageBerkas:Shuttle.jpg|thumb|175px|right|[[Space Shuttle Columbia]],
[[April 12]] 1981]]

The [[space shuttle]] became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s
and the 1980s. Planned to be a frequently launchable and mostly reusable
vehicle, four space shuttles were built by [[1985]]. The first to
launch, [[Space Shuttle Columbia|''Columbia'']] did so on [[April 12]],
[[1981]].

The shuttle was not all good news for NASA –– flights were much more
expensive than initially projected, and even after the [[1986]]
[[STS-51-L|''Challenger'' disaster]] highlighted the risks of space
flight, the public again lost interest as missions appeared to become
mundane.

Nonetheless, the shuttle has been used to launch milestone projects like
the [[Hubble Space Telescope]] (HST). The HST was created with a
relatively small budget of $2 billion but has continued operation since
[[1990]] and has delighted both scientists and the public. Some of the
images it has returned have become near-legendary, such as the
groundbreaking [[Hubble Deep Field]] images. The HST is a joint project
between [[European Space Agency|ESA]] and NASA, and its success has
paved the way for greater collaboration between the agencies.

In [[1995]] Russian-American interaction would again be achieved as the
Shuttle-[[Mir]] missions began, and once more a Russian craft (this time
a full-fledged space station) docked with an American vehicle. This
cooperation continues to the present day, with Russian and America the
two biggest partners in the largest space station ever built –– the
[[International Space Station]] (ISS). The strength of their cooperation
on this project was even more evident when NASA began relying on
Russian launch vehicles to service the ISS following the [[2003]]
[[Space Shuttle Columbia disaster|''Columbia'' disaster]], which
grounded the shuttle fleet for well over a year.

Costing over one hundred billion dollars, it has been difficult at times
for NASA to justify the ISS. The [[population]] at large have
historically been hard to impress with details of scientific experiments
in space, preferring news of grand projects to exotic locations. Even
now, the ISS cannot accommodate as many scientists as planned,
especially with the space shuttle out of use until March 2005 at the
earliest, bringing expansion to a halt and limiting it to a two person
crew.

During much of the 1990s, NASA was faced with shrinking annual budgets
due to Congressional belt-tightening in Washington, DC. In response,
NASA's ninth administrator, [[Daniel S. Goldin]], pioneered the "faster,
better, cheaper" approach that enabled NASA to cut costs while still
delivering a wide variety of aerospace programs ([[Discovery Program]]).
That method was criticized and re-evaluated following the twin losses
of [[Mars Climate Orbiter]] and [[Mars Polar Lander]] in 1999.

Probably the most publicly-inspiring mission of recent years has been
the [[Mars Pathfinder]] mission of [[1997]]. Newspapers around the world
carried images of the lander dispatching its own rover, Sojourner, to
explore the surface of Mars in a way never done before at any
extra-terrestrial location. Less publicly acclaimed but performing
science from 1997 to date ([[as of 2004|2004]]) has been the [[Mars
Global Surveyor]] orbiter. Since 2001, the orbiting [[Mars Odyssey]] has
been searching for evidence of past or present water and volcanic
activity on the red planet.

Some commentators such as Mark Wade note that NASA has suffered from a
'stop-start' approach to its manned programmes. The Apollo spacecraft
and Saturn family of launch vehicles were abandoned in 1970 after
billions of dollars had been spent on their development. In 2004 the
U.S. Government proposed eventually replacing the Shuttle with a [[Crew
Exploration Vehicle]] that would allow the agency to again conduct
manned visits to the Moon. Despite the reduction of its budget following
project Apollo, NASA has maintained a top heavy bureacracy resulting in
inflated costs and compromised hardware.

[[imageBerkas:nasa.florida.750pix.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Florida, USA, taken
from NASA Shuttle Mission STS-95 on 31st October 1998. For full details
of the view click on the picture.]]

**[[Pioneer 11]] –– Jupiter and Saturn

**[[Mariner 10]] –– Venus and Mercury

**[[Voyager 1]] –– Jupiter and Saturn

**[[Voyager 2]] –– Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune

**[[New Horizons]] (Planned for [[2006]]) –– Jupiter, Pluto and Kuiper
Belt

** [[Solar and Heliospheric Observatory|SOHO]] –– [[European Space
Agency|ESA]] partnership

** [[Ulysses (spacecraft)|Ulysses]] –– [[European Space Agency|ESA]]
partnership

** [[Spitzer Space Telescope]] (formerly known as the Space Infrared
Telescope Facility, SIRTF)

# [[T. Keith Glennan]] (1958–19611958–1961)

# [[James E. Webb]] (1961–19681961–1968)

# [[Thomas O. Paine]] (1969–19701969–1970)

# [[James C. Fletcher]] (1971–19771971–1977)

# [[Robert A. Frosch]] (1977–19811977–1981)

# [[James M. Beggs]] (1981–19851981–1985)

# [[James C. Fletcher]] (1986–19891986–1989)

# [[Richard H. Truly]] (1989–19921989–1992)

# [[Daniel S. Goldin]] (1992–20011992–2001)

# [[Sean O'Keefe]] (2001–20052001–2005)

# [[Michael Griffin]] (2005–2005–)

In addition to headquarters in Washington, D.C., NASA has field
installations at:

*[[Glenn Research Center|John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field]],
[[Cleveland, Ohio]]

**[[Independent Verification and Validation Facility]], [[Fairmont, West
Virginia]]

***[[Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex]], [[Barstow,
California]]

***[[Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex]], [[Canberra]],
[[Australian Capital Territory]]

NASA presently bestows a number of medals and decorations to astronauts
and other NASA personnel. Some awards are authorized for wear on active
duty military uniforms. Current NASA awards are as follows:

* [[1958]] –– National Aeronautics and Space Administration PL 85-568
(passed on [[July 29]])

* [[1961]] –– [[Apollo mission]] funding PL 87-98 A

* [[1970]] –– National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research and
Development Act PL 91-119

* [[1984]] –– National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization
Act PL 98-361

* [[1988]] –– National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization
Act PL 100-685

* [[NASA Budget]] 1958–20051958–2005 in 1996 Constant Year Dollars

== Riset lebih lanjutCatatan ==

[[bgKategori:НАСАNASA|*]]