National Aeronautics and Space Administration
From Slackerpedia Galactica
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed from the previous National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) on July 29, 1958, and is the public space program of the United States government.
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Who are these guys?
NASA's FY07 budget is $16.8 billion (the United States Department of Defense spent about $12.4 billion on military space activities in FY05). This compares to the European Space Agency's FY06 budget of around $4 billion, Russia's budget of around $1 billion and the Chinese budget of $1.3-$3 billion (estimated). NASA's budget is greater than that of the rest of the world's space programs combined.
One of the reasons NASA has been so successful at fundraising is that it has many centers spread out all across the country and ensures that its contractors are as well. So it gets congressional support from every congressperson who has a center or contractor in their district.
The Past
Since 1958, NASA has callously launched hundreds of people, thousands of probes and satellites, and a monkey or two into space to further America's technological ego. From the just-plain-silly Vanguard program (The first 5 attempts barely lasted a few seconds or blew up on the launchpad) to its inaugural manned space program Gemini, the manned lunar Apollo missions, the eye-astounding Voyager "grand tour of the solar system", and more recently, the Space Shuttle program.
The Present
With controversy brewing over the Columbia tragedy and the media actually paying attention for the first time in a while, the fate of the Space Shuttle program is decidedly leaning towards phased retirement. The circumplanetary flights that conducted kitschy experiments and threw satellites into orbit (literally) are a thing of the past as the only remaining program objects are helping build and resupply the International Space Station as well as some upkeep of the Hubble Space Telescope.
With the New Horizons probe launched towards Pluto and even possible Kuiper Belt Object, the disappointing waxing of the Space Shuttle program is contrasted with more hopeful projects, including President Bush's of a base on Moon, the. (Let the jokes ensue.)
The Future
Replacement of the Space Shuttle program with a succeeding orbiter or even dare we dream, a Mars-bound spaceship, is still many years off. One potential heir was the Delta Clipper program, which failed horribly in the 1990's. However, many private companies and even determined groups have been launching their own custom-made spaceships into orbit, with a small degree of success. Now the potential exists for what may be the first time ever, the government-funded space program may be taking cues from the civilian sector.
Cooperation with the Russian space program has intensified although there are no plans to cooperate with the Chinese due to their pre-Soyuz technology (think 1960's) and military nature of their program.
Future NASA projects include more probes to yield astronomical data on nearby comets, Mars, Pluto, and a mission to investigate a strange rectangular object in a Jovian orbit. They are also developing Orion, a new manned space orbiter and interplanetary spaceship.
