By Dutch Ehrenfried

This is the tale of the paintings of the unique NASA area pioneers; women and men who have been all at once equipped in 1958 from the then nationwide Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) into the distance job crew. a comparatively small staff, they constructed the preliminary undertaking thought plans and techniques for the U. S. house software. Then they boldly outfitted and amenities to complete these missions. the crowd existed purely 3 years earlier than they have been transferred to the Manned Spacecraft heart in Houston, Texas, in 1962, yet their association left a wide mark on what may follow.
Von Ehrenfried's own adventure with the STG at Langley uniquely positions him to explain the way in which the crowd was once established and the way it reacted to the recent calls for of a post-Sputnik period. He artfully analyzes how the growing to be house software used to be controlled and what recommendations enabled it to advance so fast from an operations point of view. the result's a desirable window into historical past, amply sponsored up via first individual documentation and interviews.

Show description

Read or Download The Birth of NASA: The Work of the Space Task Group, America’s First True Space Pioneers PDF

Similar astronautics & space flight books

Advanced Space Propulsion Systems

House propulsion structures have a superb impression on our skill to trip to different planets or how affordable a satellite tv for pc gives you television courses. This e-book presents an up to date review of every kind of propulsion structures starting from classical rocket know-how, nuclear propulsion to electrical propulsion structures, and additional to micro-, propellantless or even step forward propulsion, that is a brand new application lower than improvement at NASA.

Chaos in Attitude Dynamics of Spacecraft

Perspective dynamics is the theoretical foundation of perspective regulate of spacecrafts in aerospace engineering. With the improvement of nonlinear dynamics, chaos in spacecraft angle dynamics has drawn nice awareness because the 1990's. the matter of the predictability and controllability of the chaotic perspective movement of a spacecraft has a realistic importance in astronautic technology.

Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer

The firsthand account of the rigors and tribulations of engineering one of the main complicated items of house expertise, the Mars Rover interest, through its leader engineer Rob ManningIn the process our enduring quest for wisdom approximately ourselves and our universe, we've not stumbled on solutions to at least one of our so much basic questions: Does existence exist at any place else within the universe?

Extra info for The Birth of NASA: The Work of the Space Task Group, America’s First True Space Pioneers

Sample text

Hence ARPA assisted NASA from the beginning in defining the basic outline of what would later be called Project Mercury. 2 ARMY BALLISTIC MISSILE AGENCY The Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) was established on February 1, 1956; well before Sputnik. The Army’s focus was on developing an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) at the Redstone Arsenal, where the ABMA was located. Although the role of Wernher von Braun’s team of German missile experts is well known, perhaps what isn’t so well known is the number of missiles that were being worked on.

James R. , President of MIT. Thus the creation of the CORONA photoreconnaissance system and the seeds of NASA were planted at the same time and by some of the same people! The President had solved the problem over the debate about the number and capabilities of Soviet missiles targeting the United States and the debate over who should control the civilian space program. In February 1958 he approved the CORONA program, and the next month he accepted the recommendation of Dr. Killian in favor of a civilian space program.

The President and the DOD didn’t want that to happen again. However, this new agency was just an interim measure, pending the establishment of a civilian-controlled space organization. Eisenhower had already asked his Scientific Advisory Committee (PSAC), chaired by James R. Killian, Jr. of MIT, to study space policy and make a recommendation for organizing a national program in space science. S. might place a man into orbit at the earliest possible date. One plan involved using different Thor and Vanguard stages, and perhaps a new rocket.

Download PDF sample

Download The Birth of NASA: The Work of the Space Task Group, by Dutch Ehrenfried PDF
Rated 4.88 of 5 – based on 27 votes