To mark the death of Neil Armstrong, we have republished this 2008 assessment of Nasa on its 50th birthday
Fifty years ago this month, President Eisenhower announced he was going to end his nation’s space race humiliations. He would be establishing a national aeronautical agency that would control America’s civil rocket launches and restore the country’s ailing scientific reputation. The Soviet Union was then grabbing world headlines with space spectaculars that included putting the first animal, Laika the dog, into orbit. By contrast, America had little else but explosions and ignition failures on launch pads to show for its efforts in postwar rocketry. A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) would stop the rot and restore America’s faltering space endeavours, Eisenhower told Congress on 2 April 1958.
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