NASA : SCIENCE BLOG

  

When it comes to achieving incredible feats of aerospace engineering Exploring the wonders of the universe And realizing the dreams of astronauts from around the world There’s one organization that stands out above all others This is the Evolution of NASA In the first episode we will cover the origins of NASA When World War 1 started in 1914, the United States lagged far behind Europe In technology and the number of military airplanes Great Britain had 400 military airplanes Germany 1,000 and France even 1,400 While the United States only had 23  In order to catch up, the NACA or National 

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was founded In 1915 on a mission to change the face of U.S. aviation The research of this committee and its technological expertise laid the foundation for NASA Unlike NASA’s current huge budget of 22.6 billion dollars The NACA initially only had a budget of 5,000 dollars NACA received more funding in the following years Leading to ground breaking research They developed and tested new advanced airplane concepts And fixed problems the Aviators had For example, a common problem in the 1920s was that a wing would break off Yea.. that’s not too nice if you’re flying at an altitude of 13,000 feet… 

Luckily, the NACA succeeded in making wings stronger and more aerodynamic During World War II, these wings were not only on US aircrafts But also on the British Spitfire and even on enemy aircrafts like the German Focke-Wulf 190 World War 2 changed the pace and the kind of work that was done by the NACA Basically every US aircraft in the war was tested and improved by the NACA  After World War 2, the committee developed the Bell X-1 It was an aircraft powered by a rocket engine That could reach supersonic speeds, upwards of 800 miles per hour In 1947 Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound in this machine Flying a Bell X-1 Yeager broke the sound barrier, making him the fastest man alive But then things quickly changed When tensions increased between the United States and the Soviet Union In what came to be known as ‘The Cold War’ It was during this time that the two superpowers began competing for a number of achievements in space Starting the 

‘The Space Race’ On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union struck a huge blow with their successful launch of Sputnik 1 It was the first satellite placed into orbit Sputnik, which is Russian for ‘fellow traveler’ was about the size of a volleyball And featured 4 antennas that transmitted beeps Beep sounds Those beeps were heard on radio’s everywhere in the world And confirmed America’s worst fear The Soviet Union technologically surpassing the United States Now, the U.S. military seemed to have fallen behind in developing new technology As a result, the launch of Sputnik 1 intensified the arms race and raised Cold War tensions It wasn’t the Sputnik that made the successful launch so significant It was the 29-meter-tall rocket that made it possible to get into space It had 4 strap-on boosters, for a total thrust of 970 kilonewtons at lift-off The Soviets quickly followed the launch of Sputnik

 1 with the launch of Sputnik 2 Becoming the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika Laika was found wandering on the streets of Moscow Soviet scientists chose a street dog deliberately Since they assumed that such a dog had already learned To endure the conditions of extreme cold and hunger Before the launch one of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children He described Laika as a quiet and charming dog Sadly, once Sputnik 2 was launched into space there was no way to get her back on earth Due to a malfunction Laika died from overheating Despite their successes being short-lived The Sputnik launches signified a new age of technological, military and scientific development For the United States though, they were seen as a ‘crisis’ And one thing was certain To not fall further behind the Soviets,

 the US had to come back The Vanguard rocket was the first attempt of the US to launch a satellite into orbit The Vanguard was 22 meters tall and had 3 stages The first stage would bring the rocket to an altitude of 58 kilometers The second to 480 kilometers And the final stage would bring the satellite into orbit The rocket would carry a small, 1.5 kilogram satellite That only had a diameter of 16 centimeters Making it even smaller than the Sputnik 1 In December 1957 the Vanguard Rocket was launched And although it was more a test than an actually launch It was seen as “America’s answer to Sputnik” But it did not go well It reached an altitude of 4 feet or 1.2 meters before it fell and exploded The press mocked the failed attempt by calling it ‘Kaputnik’ After the failure of the Vanguard rocket 

The US army started developing the JUNO 1 rocket The JUNO 1 was a descendant of the German V-2 Rocket That was used by Nazi Germany during World War 2 The V-2 Rocket, also known as the ‘vengeance weapon’ Was the first long-range guided ballistic missile It was Hitler’s secret weapon to attack London A leading figure in the development of the V-2 rocket was Wernher von Braun Von Braun had the ambition to land a rocket on the moon And stated that the V-2 rocket worked perfectly Except for landing on the wrong planet Explosion sound After Germany lost the war Von Braun along with his team were secretly taken to the United States with Operation Paperclip Because there was military interest in the

 V-2 technology Under the direction of Von Braun the JUNO 1 was developed The Rocket was 21 meters tall, had 4 stages And while the Sputnik rocket could carry an estimated 500 kilograms to Low Earth Orbit The JUNO 1 could only carry about 22 kilograms On January 31, 1958, the JUNO 1 was launched Producing a total thrust of 416 kilonewton It was a success and the first American Satellite, the Explorer 1, was sent into space This closeup edition of the United States Sputnik was made at a press conference With leaders of the scientific teams, Dr. Wernher von Braun...

 Because of the work of Von Braun and other former Nazi’s The US managed to be successful And this was just the start of Von Braun’s career Who would become a leading figure for NASA Von Braun certainly was a very controversial figure because of his past He died in 1977 and is remembered in two ways Either as an hero who did great work for NASA Or as an evil former Nazi Who created powerful bombs that killed thousands of innocent people Nonetheless the Explorer 1 was a big success for the 

United States However, the US was still behind the Soviet Union And had to do much more to beat the Soviets That’s why in July 1958, a historical moment happened When NASA or National Aeronautics Space Agency was formed NASA took over from the NACA and the goal was very clear NASA would establish the United States as a leader in space exploration! Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video!  Did you ever dream of working at NASA?  Then you should probably know that 

Math and Science are incredibly important Luckily on the website of Brilliant you can do all kinds of courses to improve your math and science skills Not just by watching stuff, but by actually doing it Explore the Gravitational Physics course to get a better understanding of Newton’s law of gravity Make one small step today, and maybe, one day, it will become one giant leap for mankind If you visit Brilliant.org/flatlife or click the link in the description You can sign up for free! The first 200 people will also get 20% off their annual premium membership Watch Episode 2 by clicking on the left