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| Stennis Space Center |
Stennis space centerThe John C. Stennis Space Center (or SSC), located in Hancock County, Mississippi at the Mississippi/Louisiana border, is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility.
History
NASA
Construction of the 13,500 acre (55 km²) Mississippi Test Operations complex began in October, 1961. The facility's large cement and metal test stands were originally used to test-fire the first and second stages of the Saturn V rockets. Each of the engines that sent men to the moon in the late 1960s were tested here; not a single one failed during the course of these Apollo missions. In the period of the Space Shuttle program the stands were used to provide flight certification for the Space Shuttle Main Engine.
In part the site was selected because it was thinly populated and it was possible to create barge access to it. Barge access was needed as the rocket motors to be tested for Apollo were too large for overland transport. The chosen site also had to be between the Michoud Assembly Facility just east of New Orleans, Louisiana where the rockets were made and the launch facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Before construction began, five small communities with 700 familes had to be relocated. Remnants of the communities, including city streets and an one-room school house still exist within the facility.
With the close of the Apollo program use of the base plummetted, with economic impact to the surrounding communities. Over the years other government organizations were moved to the facility, providing a major economic benefit to the communities.
In the 1990s, a new test complex named "E" was constructed to test a variety of new engine concepts. A series of tests conducted there eventually led to the commercialization of hybrid rocket motors, one of which was used to power the first privately funded spaceship, Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne.
Two 250,000 gallon water tanks at the facility, used to test equipment for the Navy, were used to film the underwater sequences in the film Double Jeopardy.
The facility has been renamed several times in the course of its short history, becoming the Mississippi Test Facility in 1965, the National Space Technology Laboratories in 1974, and taking its present name in 1988 in order to honor the late Mississippi Senator John C. Stennis for his unwavering support of the national space program.
The facility was damaged in late August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.
Facilities
Hurricane Katrina
In 2005 Stennis Space Center, abbreviated SSC, was home to over 30 government agencies and private companies. By far the largest of these were elements of the United States Navy with some 3500 personnel, which was far larger than the NASA civil servant contingent. Some of the prominent resident agencies include:
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Data Buoy Center
- A branch of the Naval Research Laboratory
- The Lockheed Martin Mississippi Space and Technology Center
- The Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command
- A Navy Seal training unit.
- The University of Southern Mississippi's High Performance Visualization Center
External links
- [http://www.ssc.nasa.gov/ John C. Stennis Space Center official web site]
- [http://www.hpvc.chl.state.ms.us/ High Performance Visualization Center homepage]
- [http://ndbc.noaa.gov National Data Buoy Center]
- [https://www.cnmoc.navy.mil Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command]
- [https://rockettest.ssc.nasa.gov/ssc_ptd/images_sscptd/250K_Seq_01.mpg Movie of a test for a 250K hybrid rocket motor]
Stennis Space Center
Hancock County, Mississippi
Hancock County is a county located in the state of Mississippi. As of 2000, the population is 42,967. Its county seat is Bay St. Louis6. The area is also home to the John C. Stennis Space Center, NASA's largest rocket engine test facility.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,431 km² (553 mi²). 1,235 km² (477 mi²) of it is land and 196 km² (76 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 13.69% water. In 2005, the county was the scene of the final landfall of the eye of Hurricane Katrina, and its communities and infrastructure suffered some of the most intense damage inflicted by that storm.
ǘ Demographics
As of the census2 of 2000, there are 42,967 people, 16,897 households, and 11,827 families residing in the county. The population density is 35/km² (90/mi²). There are 21,072 housing units at an average density of 17/km² (44/mi²). The racial makeup of the county is 90.19% White, 6.83% Black or African American, 0.60% Native American, 0.88% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.33% from other races, and 1.14% from two or more races. 1.80% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 16,897 households out of which 31.50% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.90% are married couples living together, 11.30% have a female householder with no husband present, and 30.00% are non-families. 24.70% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.20% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.52 and the average family size is 2.99.
In the county the population is spread out with 25.10% under the age of 18, 7.30% from 18 to 24, 28.00% from 25 to 44, 25.60% from 45 to 64, and 14.00% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 38 years. For every 100 females there are 98.30 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 95.50 males.
The median income for a household in the county is $35,202, and the median income for a family is $40,307. Males have a median income of $32,229 versus $22,066 for females. The per capita income for the county is $17,748. 14.40% of the population and 11.20% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 17.90% of those under the age of 18 and 10.30% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
Cities and towns
- Bay St. Louis
- Diamondhead
- Kiln
- Pearlington
- Shoreline Park
- Waveland
Category:Mississippi counties
External links
- [http://www.mississippicourthouses.com/hancock/ Hancock County Courthouse Pictures]
Mississippi
Mississippi is a Southern state of the United States.
Postal abbreviation: MS. Official (long) name: State of Mississippi.
The state takes its name from the Mississippi River, which flows along the western boundary. The name itself probably means "big waters" in an old form of Ojibwe, a Native American language spoken around the river's headwaters. Other nicknames attached to Mississippi are the Magnolia State and the Hospitality State.
In research company Morgan Quitno's Most Liveable State Award, Mississippi has been in last place for seven years [http://www.morganquitno.com/srml.htm] ([http://www.morganquitno.com/sr05mlfac.htm factors]).
USS Mississippi was named in honor of this state.
History
Main article: History of Mississippi
Mississippi was part of the Mississippian culture in the early part of the second millennium AD; descendant Native American tribes include the Chickasaw and Choctaw. Other tribes who inhabited the territory of Mississippi (and gave their names to local towns) include the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Biloxi.
The first expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was that of Hernando de Soto, who passed through in 1540. However, the first settlement was that of Ocean Springs (or Old Biloxi), settled by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699. In 1716, Natchez was founded on the Mississippi River (as Fort Rosalie); it became the dominant town and trading post of the area. After spending some time under Spanish, British, and French nominal jurisdiction, the Mississippi area was deeded to the United States after the French and Indian War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.
The Mississippi Territory was organized on April 7, 1798, from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina; it was later twice expanded to include disputed territory claimed by both the U.S. and Spain. Land was purchased (generally through unequal treaties) from Native American tribes from 1800 to about 1830.
Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union, on December 10, 1817.
When cotton was king during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt regions—became increasingly wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil and the high price of cotton on the international market. The severe wealth imbalances and the necessity of large-scale slave populations to sustain such income played a heavy role in both state politics and in the support for secession.
Mississippi was the second state to secede from the Union as one of the Confederate States of America on January 9, 1861. During the Civil War the Confederate States were defeated. Under the terms of Reconstruction, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on February 23, 1870.
Mississippi was considered to typify the Deep South during the era of Jim Crow. A series of increasingly restrictive racial segregation laws enacted during the first part of the 20th century resulted in the emigration of almost half a million people, three-quarters of them black, in the 1940s. However, at the same time, Mississippi became a center of rich, quintessentially American music traditions: gospel music, jazz music, blues, and rock and roll all were invented, promulgated, or heavily developed by Mississippi musicians. Mississippi was also noted for its authors in the early twentieth century, especially William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams.
Mississippi was a center of the civil rights movement. While many in the state supported the effort to secure voting and other rights for African-Americans, the vocal opposition of many politicians and officials and the violent tactics of Ku Klux Klan members and sympathizers gave Mississippi a reputation as a reactionary state during the 1960s.
The state was the last to repeal prohibition and to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, in 1966 and 1995 respectively.
On August 17, 1969, Category 5 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars).
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused even greater destruction across the entire 90 miles of Mississippi Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama.
In recent years, Mississippi has been noted for its political conservatism, improved civil rights record, and increasing industrialization. In addition, a decision in 1990 to legalize riverboat gambling has led to economic gains for the state. However, an estimated $500,000 per day in tax revenue was lost following Hurricane Katrina's severe damage to several riverboat casinos in August 2005. Gambling towns in Mississippi include the Gulf Coast towns of Gulfport and Biloxi, and the river towns of Tunica, Greenville, Vicksburg and Natchez. Before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was the second largest gambling state in the Union, ahead of New Jersey and behind Nevada.
On October 17, 2005, Governor Haley Barbour signed a bill into law that now allows casinos in Hancock and Harrison counties to rebuild on land (but within 800 feet of the water). The only exception is in Harrison County, where the new law states that casinos can be built to the southern boundary of U.S. Highway 90.
U.S. Highway 90 until its replacement in 1903.]]
Law and government
After the Civil War, mistreatment of Southerners during Reconstruction by the federally-appointed Republican governors led to considerable resentment toward the Republican Party. As a result, Mississippi's state government had a very long unbroken record of single-party dominance. For 116 years, from 1876 to 1992 Mississippians only elected Democratic governors. For most of that time period, Democrats also held the majority of seats in the state legislature (which they still do) not to mention most other elected offices, including the state's federal representation (although some Republicans began to win Congressional elections in the 1970s).
As with all other U.S. States and the federal government, Mississippi's government is based on the separation of legislative, executive and judicial power. Executive authority in the state rests with the Governor, currently Haley Barbour (Republican). The Lieutenant Governor, currently Amy Tuck (originally elected as a Democrat, she switched to the Republican Party in 2002), is elected on a separate ballot. Both the Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected to four-year terms of office. Unlike the federal government, but like many other U.S. States, most of the heads of major executive departments are elected by the citizens of Mississippi, rather than appointed by the governor.
(See: List of Governors of Mississippi)
(See: List of Lt. Governors of Mississippi)
(See: List of State Treasurers of Mississippi)
(See: Mississippi general election results, 2003)
Legislative authority resides in the state legislature, composed of the Senate and House of Representatives. The Lieutenant Governor presides over the Senate, while the House of Representatives selects their own Speaker. The state Constitution permits the legislature to establish by law the number of Senators and Representatives, up to a maximum of 52 Senators and 122 Representatives. Current state law sets the number of Senators at 52 and Representatives at 122. The term of office for Senators and Representatives is four years.
(See: List of state legislatures of the United States.)
Supreme Judicial authority rests with the state Supreme Court, which has statewide authority. In addition, there is a statewide Court of Appeals, as well as Circuit Courts, Chancery Courts and Justice Courts, which have more limited geographical jurisdiction. The nine Judges of the Supreme Court are elected from three districts (three Judges per district) by the state's citizens in non-partisan elections to eight-year staggered terms. The ten Judges of the Court of Appeals are elected from five districts (two Judges per district) for eight-year staggered terms. Judges for the smaller courts are elected to four-year terms by the state's citizens who live within that court's jurisdiction.
At the federal level, Mississippi's two U.S. senators are Trent Lott (Republican) and Thad Cochran (Republican). As of the 2001 reapportionment, the state has 4 congressmen in the U.S. House of Representatives.
(See: List of United States Representatives from Mississippi)
Mississippi has 82 counties. Citizens of Mississippi counties elect the five members of their county Board of Supervisors from single-member districts, as well as other county officials.
(See: List of Mississippi counties)
Economics
List of Mississippi counties
[http://www.bea.gov/ The Bureau of Economic Analysis] estimates that Mississippi's total state product in 2003 was $72 billion. Per capital personal income in 2003 was $23,466, 51st in the nation (ranking includes the District of Columbia).
Mississippi's rank as the poorest state can be traced to the Civil War. Before the Civil War, Mississippi was the fifth-wealthiest state in the nation. The war cost the state 30,000 men. Plantaton owners who survived the war were virtually bankrupted by the emancipation of slaves, and Union troops left widespread destruction in their wake.
Transportation
Mississippi is served by six Interstate highways
- Interstate 10
- Interstate 20
- Interstate 55
- Interstate 59
- Interstate 110
- Interstate 220
and fourteen main U.S. Highways
- U.S. Highway 11
- U.S. Highway 45
- U.S. Highway 49
- U.S. Highway 51
- U.S. Highway 61
- U.S. Highway 65
- U.S. Highway 72
- U.S. Highway 78
- U.S. Highway 80
- U.S. Highway 82
- U.S. Highway 84
- U.S. Highway 90
- U.S. Highway 98
- U.S. Highway 278
as well as a system of State Highways.
For more information, visit the [http://www.gomdot.com/ Mississippi Department of Transportation] website.
Demographics
Population
- The 2000 Census reported Mississippi's population as 2,844,658 [http://www.censusscope.org/us/s28/chart_popl.html]. 2004 estimates show the population as having risen to 2,902,966. [http://www.census.gov/popest/states/tables/NST-EST2004-01.pdf]
Racial Makeup and Ancestry
The Census Bureau considers race and Hispanic origin to be two separate categories. This data, however, is only for non-Hispanic members of each group: non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, etc. For more information on race and the Census, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28U.S._Census%29 here.]
Until about 1940, Blacks made up a majority of Mississippians. Their share of the population has since declined, but has in recent years begun to increase, due mainly to a younger Black age structure caused by a relatively high Black birthrate, although this has subsided somewhat in recent years. In Mississippi's public school system, the majority of students are Black. [http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/profile.asp] Blacks currently predominate in the northwestern Yazoo Delta, the southwestern, and central parts of the state.
Nearly 10,000 Native Americans (mostly Choctaw) live in the east central section of the state. The small Chinese population found in the Delta is descended from farm laborers brought there from California in the 1870s. The Chinese did not adjust well to the Mississippi plantation system, however, and most of them became small merchants. The coastal fishing industry has attracted Southeast Asian refugees.
The white population of Mississippi is remarkably homogeneous and mostly of American ancestry. More than 98 percent native-born, predominantly of Northern European descent. According to the 2000 Census, the largest ancestries are American (14.2%), Irish (6.9%), English (6.1%), and German (4.5%). There are also French and Italian populations. French Creoles are the largest demographic group in Hancock County on the Gulf Coast. The black, Choctaw Indian (in Neshoba County), and Chinese segments of the population are also almost entirely native-born.
Religion
Mississippi's religious affiliations principally consist of evangelical Protestant denominations, particularly the Baptists (Southern Baptist, Missionary Baptist, etc.), along with Methodists and Presbyterians. The small Roman Catholic population is found primarily in urban areas and on the Gulf Coast, and the tiny Jewish population is also mainly concentrated in urban areas.
The current religious affiliations of the people of Mississippi are as follows:
- Christian – 92%
- Protestant – 86%
- Baptist – 58%
- Methodist – 10%
- Pentecostal – 3%
- Presbyterian – 2%
- Other Protestant – 13%
- Roman Catholic – 5%
- Other Christian – 1%
- Other Religions – <1%
- Non-Religious – 7%
Important cities and towns
Education
Colleges and universities
Miscellaneous information
State motto: "Virtute et Armis" (By Valor and Arms)
State song: "Go, Mississippi", adopted 1962
Patron saint: Our Lady of Sorrows
State flower and state tree: Magnolia
State bird: Mockingbird
State beverage: Milk
State fish: Largemouth Bass
State insect: Honeybee
State water mammal: Bottlenose Dolphin
State shell: Oyster
State fossil: A whale fossil nicknamed "ziggy"
State land mammals: White-tailed Deer and Red Fox
State waterfowl: Wood duck
State stone: Petrified wood
State wildflower: Coreopsis
State butterfly: Spicebush Swallowtail
State dance: Square Dance
Statehood Quarter was minted in 2002.
Pledge to the Flag: "I salute the flag of Mississippi and the sovereign state for which it stands with pride in her history and achievements and with confidence in her future under the guidance of Almighty God."
Famous Mississippians
Mississippi has produced a number of notable and famous individuals, including author William Faulkner, author Eudora Welty, musician Elvis Presley, blues musicians B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and Robert Johnson, novelist John Grisham, entertainer Oprah Winfrey, author Richard Wright, actor Morgan Freeman, playwright Tennessee Williams, and country music singer Faith Hill .
External links
- [http://www.ms.gov State of Mississippi]
- [http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/ The Mississippi Writers Page]
- [http://www.yoyita.com Mississippi Arts]
-
Mississippi
ko:미시시피 주
ja:ミシシッピ州
simple:Mississippi
NASA]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which was established in 1958, is the agency responsible for the public space program of the United States of America. It is also responsible for long-term civilian and military aerospace research.
Vision and mission
NASA's vision is "to improve life here, extend life to there, and to find life beyond." Its mission is "to understand and protect our home planet; to explore the Universe and search for life; and to inspire the next generation of explorers."
History
Space Race
:For additional background, please see the Space Race article
Space Race launch of Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury 3 capsule Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard Jr. on the United States' first human flight into sub-orbital space. (Atlas rockets were used to launch Mercury's orbital missions.)]]
Following the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first man-made satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to U.S. security and technological leadership, urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. Several months of debate produced agreement that a new federal agency was needed to conduct all nonmilitary activity in space.
On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA consisted mainly of the four laboratories and some 8,000 employees of the government's 46-year-old research agency for aeronautics, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), though the probably most important contribution actually had its roots in the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who is today regarded as the father of the United States space program.
NASA's early programs were research into human spaceflight, and were conducted under the pressure of the competition between the USA and the USSR (the Space Race) that existed during the Cold War. The Mercury program, initiated in 1958, started NASA down the path of human space exploration with missions designed to discover simply if man could survive in space. Representatives from the U.S. Army (M.L. Raines, LTC, USA), Navy (P.L. Havenstein, CDR, USN) and Air Force (K.G. Lindell, COL, USAF) were selected/requested to provide assistance to the NASA Space Task Group through coordination with the existing U.S. military research and defense contracting infrastructure, and technical assistance resulting from experimental aircraft (and the associated military test pilot pool) development in the 1950s. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first American in space when he piloted Freedom 7 on a 15-minute suborbital flight. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962 during the 5-hour flight of Friendship 7.
Once the Mercury project proved that human spaceflight was possible, project Gemini was launched to conduct experiments and work out issues relating to a moon mission. The first Gemini flight with astronauts on board, Gemini III, was flown by Virgil "Gus" Grissom and John W. Young on March 23, 1965. Nine other missions followed, showing that long-duration human space flight was possible, proving that rendezvous and docking with another vehicle in space was possible, and gathering medical data on the effects of weightlessness on humans.
Apollo program
Following the success of the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Apollo program was launched to try to do interesting work in space and possibly put men around (but not on) the Moon. The direction of the Apollo program was radically altered following President John F. Kennedy's announcement on May 25, 1961 that the United States should commit itself to "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by 1970. Thus Apollo became a program to land men on the Moon. The Gemini program was started shortly thereafter to provide an interim spacecraft to prove techniques needed for the now much more complicated Apollo missions.
Gemini program.]]
After eight years of preliminary missions, including NASA's first loss of astronauts with the Apollo 1 launch pad fire, and the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon (Apollo 8) at the end of 1968, the Apollo program achieved its goals with Apollo 11 which landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon's surface on July 20, 1969 and returned them to Earth safely on July 24. Armstrong's first words upon stepping out of the Eagle lander captured the momentousness of the occasion: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Twelve men would set foot on the Moon by the end of the Apollo program in December 1972.
NASA had won the moon race, and in some senses this left it without direction, or at the very least without the public attention and interest that was necessary to guarantee large budgets from Congress. After President Lyndon Johnson left office, NASA lost its main political supporter, and rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was moved to a position lobbying in Washington. Plans for ambitious follow-on projects to construct a space station, establish a lunar base and launch a human mission to Mars by 1990 were proposed but with the end to procurement of Saturn and Apollo hardware, there was no capability to support these. The near-disaster of Apollo 13, where an oxygen tank explosion nearly doomed all three astronauts, helped to recapture national attention and concern. Although missions up to Apollo 20 were planned, Apollo 17 was the last mission to fly under the Apollo banner. The program ended because of budget cuts (in part due to the Vietnam War) and the desire to develop a reusable space vehicle.
Other early missions
Although the vast majority of NASA's budget has been spent on human spaceflight, there have been many robotic missions instigated by the space agency. In 1962 the Mariner 2 mission was launched and became the first spacecraft to make a flyby of another planet – in this case Venus. The Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter missions were essential to assessing lunar conditions before attempting Apollo landings with humans on board. Later, the two Viking probes landed on the surface of Mars and sent color images back to Earth, but perhaps more impressive were the Pioneer and particularly Voyager missions that visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune sending back scientific information and color images.
Having lost the moon race, the Soviet Union had, along with the USA, changed its approach. On July 17, 1975 an Apollo craft (finding a new use after the cancelling of planned lunar flights) was docked to the Soviet Soyuz 19 spacecraft, in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Although the Cold War would last many more years, this was a critical point in NASA's history and much of the international co-operation in space exploration that exists today has its genesis with this mission. America's first space station, Skylab, occupied NASA from the end of Apollo until the late 1970s.
Shuttle era
Skylab 1981 ]]
The space shuttle became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Planned to be a frequently launchable and mostly reusable vehicle, four space shuttles were built by 1985. The first to launch, Columbia did so on April 12, 1981.
The shuttle was not all good news for NASA – flights were much more expensive than initially projected, and even after the 1986 Challenger disaster highlighted the risks of space flight, the public again lost interest as missions appeared to become mundane. Work began on Space Station Freedom as a focus for the manned space programme but within NASA there was argument that these projects came at the expense of more inspiring unmanned missions such as the Voyager probes. The Challenger disaster aside the late 1980s marked a low point for NASA.
Nonetheless, the shuttle has been used to launch milestone projects like the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The HST was created with a relatively small budget of $2 billion but has continued operation since 1990 and has delighted both scientists and the public. Some of the images it has returned have become near-legendary, such as the groundbreaking Hubble Deep Field images. The HST is a joint project between ESA and NASA, and its success has paved the way for greater collaboration between the agencies.
In 1995 Russian-American interaction would again be achieved as the Shuttle-Mir missions began, and once more a Russian craft (this time a full-fledged space station) docked with an American vehicle. This cooperation continues to the present day, with Russia and America the two biggest partners in the largest space station ever built – the International Space Station (ISS). The strength of their cooperation on this project was even more evident when NASA began relying on Russian launch vehicles to service the ISS following the 2003 Columbia disaster, which grounded the shuttle fleet for well over two years.
Costing over one hundred billion dollars, it has been difficult at times for NASA to justify the ISS. The population at large have historically been hard to impress with details of scientific experiments in space, preferring news of grand projects to exotic locations. Even now, the ISS cannot accommodate as many scientists as planned.
During much of the 1990s, NASA was faced with shrinking annual budgets due to Congressional belt-tightening in Washington, DC. In response, NASA's ninth administrator, Daniel S. Goldin, pioneered the "faster, better, cheaper" approach that enabled NASA to cut costs while still delivering a wide variety of aerospace programs (Discovery Program). That method was criticized and re-evaluated following the twin losses of Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander in 1999.
NASA's future
Mars Polar Lander and the planned crew and heavy lift launch vehicles]]
NASA's most publicly-inspiring mission of recent years has probably been the Mars Pathfinder mission of 1997. Newspapers around the world carried images of the lander dispatching its own rover, Sojourner, to explore the surface of Mars in a way never done before at any extra-terrestrial location. Less publicly acclaimed but performing science from 1997 to date (2005) has been the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Since 2001, the orbiting Mars Odyssey has been searching for evidence of past or present water and volcanic activity on the red planet. NASA expects to continue exploring the Red Planet with more spacecraft such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will reach Mars in 2006.
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, which killed the crew of six American and one Israeli astronaut, and caused a 29-month hiatus in space shuttle flights, triggered a serious re-examination of NASA's priorities. The U.S. government, various scientists, and the public all considered the future of the space program.
On January 14, 2004, ten days after the landing of Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, President George W. Bush announced a new plan for NASA's future, dubbed the Vision for Space Exploration. According to this plan, humankind will return to the moon by 2020, and set up outposts as a testbed and potential resource for future missions. The space shuttle will be retired in 2010 and the Crew Exploration Vehicle will replace it by 2014, capable of both docking with the ISS and leaving the Earth's orbit. The future of the ISS is somewhat uncertain – construction will be completed, but beyond that is less clear. Although the plan initially met with skepticism from Congress, in late 2004 Congress agreed to provide start-up funds for the first year's worth of the new space vision.
Hoping to spur innovation from the private sector, NASA established a series of Centennial Challenges, technology prizes for non-government teams, in 2004. The Challenges include tasks that will be useful for implementing the Vision for Space Exploration, such as building more efficient astronaut gloves.
Criticisms
Some commentators, such as Mark Wade, note that NASA has suffered from a 'stop-start' approach to its human spaceflight programs. The Apollo spacecraft and Saturn family of launch vehicles were abandoned in 1970 after billions of dollars had been spent on their development. In 2004 the U.S. Government proposed eventually replacing the Shuttle with a Crew Exploration Vehicle that would allow the agency to again send astronauts to the Moon. Despite the reduction of its budget following project Apollo, NASA has maintained a top-heavy bureaucracy resulting in inflated costs and compromised hardware.
Crew Exploration Vehicle on October 31, 1998.]]
Currently, the ISS relies on the Shuttle fleet for all major construction shipments.
The Shuttle fleet has lost two spacecraft and fourteen astronauts in two disasters in 1986 and 2003.
While the 1986 loss was made up with a Shuttle built from replacement parts, NASA does not plan to build another shuttle to replace the second loss. (But see also CEV.)
The ISS, which was intended to have a crew of seven as of 2005, now has a skeleton crew of two, causing many intended research projects to be delayed.
Other nations that have invested heavily in the space station's construction, such as the members of the European Space Agency, are fearful that the ISS's fate will soon match the fate of Skylab. As of 2005, however, all of the European and Japanese contributions to the ISS are years behind development schedule themselves.
NASA spaceflight missions
Human spaceflight
- Mercury program
- Gemini program
- Apollo program
- Skylab
- Space Shuttle
- International Space Station (working together with ESA, Rosviakosmos and JAXA)
- Project Constellation
Robotic space missions
- Earth Observing
- Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite
- TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics)
- Lunar missions
- Ranger
- Surveyor
- Lunar Orbiter
- Clementine
- Lunar Prospector
- Mercury missions
- Mariner 10
- MESSENGER
- Venus missions
- Mariner 2, 5 and 10
- Pioneer Venus
- Magellan
- Mars missions
- Mariner 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9
- Viking 1 and 2
- Mars Observer
- Mars Pathfinder
- Mars Climate Orbiter
- Mars Polar Lander
- Mars Global Surveyor
- 2001 Mars Odyssey
- Mars Exploration Rovers
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
- Phoenix Lander (Planned for 2007)
- Mars Science Laboratory (Planned for 2009)
- Jupiter missions
- Pioneer 10
- Galileo
- Juno
- Saturn missions
- Cassini-Huygens together with ESA
- Multi-planet missions
- Pioneer 11 – Jupiter and Saturn
- Mariner 10 – Venus and Mercury
- Voyager 1 – Jupiter and Saturn
- Voyager 2 – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
- New Horizons (Planned for 2006) – Jupiter, Pluto and Kuiper Belt
- Asteroidal/cometary missions
- NEAR Shoemaker
- Deep Space 1
- Stardust
- Deep Impact
- Dawn (Planned for 2006)
- Proposed or canceled planetary-asteroid missions
- JIMO (cancelled)
- CRAF (cancelled)
- NetLanders (cancelled)
- Pluto Kuiper Express (cancelled; New Horizons is replacement)
- Titan Explorer (proposed)
- Neptune Orbiter (proposed)
- Sun observing missions
- SOHO – ESA partnership
- Ulysses – ESA partnership
- Great Observatories for Space Astrophysics
- Hubble Space Telescope – ESA partnership
- Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
- Chandra X-ray Observatory
- Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, SIRTF)
- Other observatories
- COBE
- FUSE
- Infrared Astronomical Satellite
- James Webb Space Telescope – ESA partnership
- WMAP
List of NASA administrators
# T. Keith Glennan (1958–1961)
# James E. Webb (1961–1968)
# Thomas O. Paine (1969–1970)
# James C. Fletcher (1971–1977)
# Robert A. Frosch (1977–1981)
# James M. Beggs (1981–1985)
# James C. Fletcher (1986–1989)
# Richard H. Truly (1989–1992)
# Daniel S. Goldin (1992–2001)
# Sean O'Keefe (2001–2005)
# Michael Griffin (2005–)
Field installations
In addition to headquarters in Washington, D.C., NASA has field installations at:
- Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
- Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
- John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland, Ohio
- Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
- Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York
- Independent Verification and Validation Facility, Fairmont, West Virginia
- Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, near Pasadena, California
- Deep Space Network stations:
- Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, Barstow, California
- Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, Madrid, Spain
- Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
- Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
- White Sands Test Facility, Las Cruces, New Mexico
- John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida
- Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
- George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
- Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, Louisiana
- John C. Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Awards and decorations
NASA presently bestows a number of medals and decorations to astronauts and other NASA personnel. Some awards are authorized for wear on active duty military uniforms. Current NASA awards are as follows:
- Congressional Space Medal of Honor
- NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal
- NASA Distinguished Service Medal
- NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal
- NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Administrative Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Bravery Medal
- NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Service Medal
- NASA Exceptional Technological Achievement Medal
- NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal
- NASA Public Service Medal
- NASA Space Flight Medal
Related legislation
- 1958 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration PL 85-568 (passed on July 29)
- 1961 – Apollo mission funding PL 87-98 A
- 1970 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research and Development Act PL 91-119
- 1984 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 98-361
- 1988 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 100-685
- NASA Budget 1958–2005 in 1996 Constant Year Dollars
See also
- List of aerospace engineering topics
- Astronaut
- Small Aircraft Transportation System
- Space Shuttle
- Space exploration
- Space race
- Robert Gilruth, Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz (flight directors)
- KC-135 Reduced Gravity Aircraft
- Shirley Thomas
- Stewart Brand
- Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Vision for Space Exploration
- Asteroid 11365 NASA is named after the organization.
Other space agencies
- Canadian Space Agency
- CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales)
- China National Space Administration
- European Space Agency
- Italian Space Agency
- Indian Space Research Organisation
- Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
- National Space Agency of Ukraine
- Russian Federal Space Agency
- Soviet space program (historical)
External links
General
- [http://www.nasa.gov NASA Home Page]
- [http://www.nasawatch.com NASA Watch]
-
Further research
- [http://history.nasa.gov/series95.html NASA History Series Publications]
- [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/cover.html NASA Historical Data Books (SP-4012)]
- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/hhrhist.pdf Research in NASA History: A Guide to the NASA History Program (large PDF – over 1,012 kb)]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/ NTRS: NASA Technical Reports Server]
- [http://www.eventscope.org Eventscope]
Category:Independent Agencies of the United States Government
ko:미국항공우주국
ja:アメリカ航空宇宙局
simple:NASA
th:องค์การนาซา
1961
1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar).
As MAD Magazine pointed out on its cover for the March issue, this was the first "upside-up" year—i.e., one that looked the same upside down—since 1881, and the last until 6009.
Events
January
1881 in January 1961]]
- January 1 - The farthing coin, used since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
- January 3 - President Dwight Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
- January 3 - SL-1, an atomic reactor, exploded at National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho, killing 3 military technicians.
- January 5 - Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marches into US consulate in Rome and confesses that he was part of the team that forged the Etruscan terracotta warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- January 7 - Following a four-day conference in Casablanca, five African chiefs of state announced plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. The Charter of Casablanca involved were Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
- January 8 - In France, referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria
- January 9 - British authorities announce that they have discovered a large Soviet spy ring in London
- January 12 - President Dwight Eisenhower gave his final State of the Union Address to Congress.
- January 17 - Assassination of Patrice Lumumba
- January 20 - John F. Kennedy becomes President of the United States
- January 24 - US B-52 bomber with two 24-megaton nuclear bombs crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina
- January 24 - Musician Bob Dylan said to have made his way to New York City after bumming a ride in Madison, Wisconsin. Dylan was likely on his way to visit his idol Woody Guthrie. He later found fame in the Greenwich Village protest folk music scene.
- January 25 - In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union had freed the two surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down by Soviet flyers over the Barents Sea July 1, 1960. (see RB-47H shot down)
- January 25 - Acting to halt 'leftist excesses,' a junta comprised of two army officers and 4 civilians takes over the rule of El Salvador, ousting another junta that had ruled for three months.
- January 26 - John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the first time a woman held this appointment.
- January 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivered his first State of the Union Address.
- January 30 - Martin Luther King Jr. has a son - Dexter Scott King.
- January 31 - Ham, a 37 pound male chimpanzee, was rocketed into space in a test of the Project Mercury capsule designed to carry U.S. astronauts into space.
February-March
astronaut, Israel.]]
- February 3 - China buys grain from Canada with $60 million
- February 4 - The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.
- February 5 - The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue.
- February 9 - In Congo, president Joseph Kasavubu names Joseph Ileo as a new prime minister
- February 11 - Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.
- February 13 - Congo government announces that villagers have killed Patrice Lumumba
- February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized (Berkeley, California).
- February 15 - A Sabena Boeing 707 crashes near Brussels, Belgium killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.
- February 26 - Hassan II is pronounced King of Morocco.
- March 1 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
- March 1 - First elections held in Uganda and it becomes self-governing.
- March 2 - US president John F Kennedy creates Peace Corps
- March 3 - Hassan II is crowned King of Morocco.
- March 8 - Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes setting a new world record.
- March 8 - First US Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch.
- March 13 - Black and white £5 notes cease to be a legal tender in the UK
- March 13 - A dam bursts on the Dnieper river in the USSR - 145 dead.
- March 15 - South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth.
- March 18 - Ceasefire in the Algerian War of Independence
- March 29 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections.
- March 30 - Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs signed at New York.
April
- April 5 - New Guinea Council of western Papua installed
- April 11 - Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem
- April 12 - Albert Kalonji takes a title of Emperor Albert I Kalonji of South Kasai
- April 12 - Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space.
- April 17 - Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins, ending in failure April 19.
- April 20 - Fidel Castro announces that all invaders of the Bay of Pigs invasion have been defeated
- April 22 - Three French generals who oppose De Gaulle's policies in Algeria fail in a coup attempt.
- April 23-24 - Vasa raised in the Stockholm harbor.
- April 25 - Robert Noyce is granted the first patent for an integrated circuit.
- April 25 - General Maurice Challe, who lead the Algerian army rebels, surrenders
- April 26 - In Congo, soldiers arrest Moise Tsombe in a political conference
- April 27 - Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom.
- April 29 - NSW votes at referendum to retain Legislative Council
May
- May 5 - Alan B. Shepard becomes the first American in space.
- May 8 - British George Blake is sentenced to 42 years imprisonment for spying.
- May 14 - American civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.
- May 16 - A military coup in South Korea - Do Young Tsang takes over.
- May 19 - Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however the probe had lost contact with earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).
- May 21 - American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
- May 24 - American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
- May 25 - Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the moon" before the end of the decade.
- May 27 - Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaya holds a press conference in Singapore announcing his idea of formation of the Federation of Malaysia comprising Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo(Sabah).
- May 28 - Peter Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners" is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.
- May 30 - Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, totalitarian despot of the Dominican Republic since 1930, is killed in an ambush, putting an end to the second longest-running dictatorship in Latin American history.
- May 31 - In France, rebel generals Maurice Challe ja Andre Zelelr are sentenced to 15 years in prison
- May 31 - South Africa officially leaves the British Commonwealth
June-September
- June 4 - John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meet during two days in Vienna. They talk about nuclear tests, disarmament and Germany.
- June 17 - Paris-Strassbourg train derails near Ventyr-le-Francois – 24 dead, 109 dead
- June 17 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.
- June 19 - British protectorate ends in Kuwait and it becames an emirate
- June 21 - Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev requests asylum in France while in Paris with the Kirov Ballet
- June 22 - Moise Tshombe released for lack of evidence to connection to murder of Patrice Lumumba
- June 25 - US philanthropist George Vanderbilt is found dead at the base of a San Francisco skyscraper
- June 25 - Iraqi president Abdul Karim Kassem announces he is going to annex Kuwait - Kuwaiti government ask British help in June 27. British army begin to send in troops.
- July 4 - Soviet submarine K-19 explodes in the North Atlantic - 22 dead
- July 5 - The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2 was launched.
- July 8 - Mine explosion in Czechoslovakia - 108 dead
- July 21 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7" becomes the second American to go into space (sub-orbital).
- July 31 - At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain.
- August 10 - Britain applies for membership of the EEC.
- August 21 - Jomo Kenyatta released from prison in Kenya
- August 13 - Construction of the Berlin Wall begins. Movement between East Berlin and West Berlin remains restricted for the next 28 years, until November 9, 1989.
- August 21 – Jomo Kenyatta is fully released in Kenya.
- September 14 - New military government of Turkey sentences 15 members of the previous government to death
- September 17 - Military rulers in Turkey hang publicly former president Adnan Menderes
- September 17-18 - Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash en route to Katanga, Congo.
- September 21 - In France, OAS slips an anti-de Gaulle message to TV programming
- September 24 - The old Deutsche Opernhaus in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg returned to its newly rebuilt house as the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
- September 28 - A military coup in Damascus, Syria effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria
October-November
- October 10 - Volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha - whole population evacuated.
- October 12 - The death penalty abolished in New Zealand.
- October 17 - "Battle of Paris": French police attack in Paris about 30,000 protesting a curfew applied solely to Algerians. Official death toll is 3, but human rights groups claim 240 dead.
- October 19 - Arab League takes over protection of Kuwait - last British troops leave.
- October 25 - The first edition of Private Eye, the British satirical magazine.
- October 27 - Armistice begins in Katanga, Congo
- October 27 - Mongolia and Mauretania join the United Nations
- October 30 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates a 58 megaton yield hydrogen bomb over Novaya Zemlya (this is still the largest nuclear device to ever be detonated). Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield so as to avoid breaking all the windows in Moscow.
- October 31 - In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.
- October 31 - Hurricane Hattie hits Belize City. 400 dead, 65.000 made homeless.
- November - Despite public protest, the demolition of Euston Arch in London starts.
- November 2 - Congo government troops march into Katanga
- November 3 - U Thant of Burma elected United Nations Secretary General
- November 12 - Stalingrad's name changed to Volgograd.
- November 13 - Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny succeeds Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shelepin as head of the KGB.
- November 16 - British Conservative government introduces the Commonwealth Immigration Bill, limiting immigration from British Commonwealth countries to Britain.
- November 29 - Mercury program: Mercury-Atlas 5 is launched with Enos the chimp aboard (the spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico).
December
- December 1 - Netherlands New Guinea raises new Morning Star flag and changes name to West Papua
- December 2 - Cold War: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.
- December 5 – US president John F. Kennedy gives support to Volta Dam project in Ghana.
- December 9 - Tanganyika gains independence and declares itself a republic with Julius Nyerere as its first President.
- December 9 - The Australian government of Robert Menzies is re-elected for a sixth term.
- December 10 - Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania.
- December 11 - Vietnam War officially begins as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel.
- December 11 - Adolf Eichmann is pronounced guilty
- December 15 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolf Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish holocaust.
- December 17 - India occupies Goa
- December 19 - Goa officially ceded to India after 400 years of Portuguese rule.
- December 19 - Sukarno announces that he will take West Irian by force if necessary
- December 21 - In Congo, Katangan primne minister Moise Tshombe recognizes Congolese constitution
- December 30 - Congolese troops capture Albert Kalonji of South Kasai (who soon escapes)
- December 31 - The Marshall Plan expires after having distributed more than $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
- December 31 - Ireland's first national television station, Teilifís Éireann, (later RTÉ) begins broadcasting.
Unknown dates
- John F. Kennedy begins the Apollo program of U.S. manned spaceflight
- The first quasar is discovered by Allan Sandage at Mt Palomar, California
Births
January-March
- January 2 - Gabrielle Carteris, American actress
- January 2 - Todd Haynes, American film director
- January 8 - Calvin Smith, American athlete
- January 13 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus, American actress
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