Earth Matters

A Century Studying Flight

March 3rd, 2015 by Mike Carlowicz

“Today marks a special anniversary for the NASA family,” Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a letter to NASA employees.

On March 3, 1915, the U.S. Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the organization from which NASA was later created in 1958. Bolden notes that NACA was initially formed because political leaders at the time were concerned that the United States was losing its edge in aviation technology to Europe, where World War 1 was raging.

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One of NACA’s missions was to “supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution.” Research by NACA funded engineers led to fundamental advances in aeronautics that enabled victory in World War II, spawned a world-leading civil aviation manufacturing industry, propelled supersonic flight, supported national security, and laid the foundation for modern air travel and the Space Age. Many names we know from the early days of space exploration got their start at the NACA – including Robert Gilruth, Hugh Dryden, Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz and Neil Armstrong, among many others. A number of the laboratories and wind tunnels built in the NACA era are still at work today.

You can learn more about NACA by visiting this page on the main NASA web site. And you can watch pieces of the centennial symposium here.

One Response to “A Century Studying Flight”

  1. wadzinski says:

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