Surely, on numerous occasions you have heard about the NASA. This is the United States Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA, for its acronym in English) is an agency dedicated to space research and exploration. Over the years since its inception, it has launched numerous missions to explore outer space. It is one of the most important agencies in the world in everything related to astronomy.
In this article we are going to tell you about all the characteristics and importance of NASA.
Key features
It is an agency created in 1958. Since then, it has been in charge of launching more than 160 manned space missions and has sent numerous astronauts into space. The main objective of NASA and all the space missions that have occurred during all these years is to explore outer space and get more information about it. We try to find or find out about extraterrestrial life and the characteristics of everything that surrounds our planet in outer space.
Among the most important missions by The ones that this agency highlights is the one on the trip to the moon in 1969. It is a great mission that traveled all the corners of this planet and everyone was waiting for what NASA was going to discover. There are many people who still think that the trip to the moon was all a montage and was not real.
Starting with some very important trips to outer space, NASA had to cancel numerous expeditions due to lack of funds. And it is that space exploration lost interest in the population and less and less funds were destined for it. After 30 years doing space missions, he had to cancel this entire program. Yet US President Donald Trump is keen to push the space agency to send more missions into space and make incredible discoveries.
Importance of NASA
Keep in mind that at present this agency is no longer the only one to explore space. However, it should not be minimized, since it is the one that took us to the moon some 51 years ago. In addition, during all these decades it has been responsible for the fulfillment of human dreams for the conquest of outer space. Although it was founded on July 29, 1958, but it did not start operations until October 1 of that year.
Everything that is known about outer space so far has been discovered by this agency, so it is of great importance regarding knowledge of the entire universe. Every time something about the space expires we remember this agency. We are going to see now which are the most important trips that NASA has made and that have relevance for the knowledge about the universe.
The best NASA trips
- Scout 1: It is the first artificial satellite of the West that was given in response to the Soviets. It is with this artificial satellite that the space race began (link) 30. This device measured 203 centimeters long and 16 centimeters wide and was responsible for discovering that our planet was surrounded by cosmic rays. It circled our planet 58 thousand times and was in space for 12 years.
- Allan Shepard: He was the first NASA astronaut to travel into space. He made an orbital flight on the Mercury Redstone 3 spacecraft. This event took place in 1961.
- Apollo Program: This program had the objective of being able to fly over and step on the Moon. The program was launched after an announcement by President John F. Kennedy in which he declared that a man would be taken to the satellite. There were many missions until Apollo 11 was in charge of fulfilling the promise of stepping on the moon. It happened in 1969 and it was Neil Armstrong who spoke the immortal words of: "A small step for man, a great leap for humanity." This phrase was pronounced just before stepping on our satellite, the Moon.
- Apollo 13: This is a mission that sought to lead man to step on our satellite for the third time. However, an oxygen tank fence caused the ship to be in danger. It was one of the most important successful failures in history. Although the mission did not go off correctly, they were able to return home thanks to the expertise of the astronauts and their companions. We must also mention the work of the mission control men on Earth who helped return to our planet.
- Pioneer 10: May 1972 and it is a space probe that has become the first spacecraft to cross the Asteroid Belt and reach Jupiter. It has a plate that informs any extraterrestrial intelligence that could be found where it has come from and how we human beings are. The last signal captured from this probe was in 2003. At present, it is heading towards the star Aldebaran within the constellation of Taurus.
Other important missions
Let's see what are the other important missions that NASA has had.
- Space shuttles: It is a program that was born when NASA wanted to reduce research costs. This is because the Apollo spacecraft could only be used once. It seems that there were vehicles that could withstand many trips in space, so they had to develop a ship that could withstand the heat that the entrance and exit of the earth generated. After 9 30 years of study, the Columbia shuttle could be created. Since it began its service it has been in use for more than 2 decades, but it disintegrated on its last outing and took the lives of 7 crew members.
- Hubble Space Telescope: Before Hubble, the images we had of space were the product of ground-based telescopes. NASA decided to place one of these devices off the planet to capture sharper pictures of the universe. Thanks to regular maintenance, Hubble is still active.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about NASA and its exploits.