Eisenhower and NASA: How a Cold War President Created a Civilian Space Agency

President Eisenhower talks with Dr. Wernher von Braun on a tour of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, September 8, 1960. Eisenhower National Historic Site.

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which went on to land people on the Moon in 1969, was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958.

The Space Race begins

The demand for a national space agency grew out of the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union after the Second World War. The first American rocket programmes were run by the Department of Defense, aiming for American dominance in space. The Soviet Union answered with a programme of its own, and on October 4, 1957, it launched Sputnik 1, the first human-made object to reach orbit. The Space Race had begun.

Fear of Soviet technology sped up the American response. The Navy's attempt to launch a satellite, Vanguard TV3, lost thrust two seconds after launch and exploded. Even after the Army launched Explorer 1 in January 1958, it was clear the American rocket programme needed rebuilding.

Why civilian

On April 2, 1958, Eisenhower sent Congress a special message calling for a civilian National Aeronautics and Space Agency. A career general, he knew the value of keeping military and civilian affairs apart. The agency should be civilian, he wrote, because

"space exploration holds promise of adding importantly to our knowledge of the earth, the solar system, and the universe, and because it is of great importance to have the fullest cooperation of the scientific community at home and abroad in moving forward in the fields of space science and technology. Moreover, a civilian setting for the administration of space function will emphasize the concern of our Nation that outer space be devoted to peaceful and scientific purposes."

A civilian agency would also end the rivalry among the Army, Navy and Air Force, whose separate rocket programmes competed for money, public favour and staff, and were often costly and counterproductive.

NASA is born

• July 29, 1958: Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA.
• August 8: he nominated T. Keith Glennan as its first administrator. The Department of Defense agreed to hand over all non-military space projects, a line between military and scientific space work that still exists.
• By 1960: NASA had taken over the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Navy's Vanguard group, bringing together scientists including Wernher von Braun, who would later lead NASA's efforts to land on the Moon.

Eisenhower still valued military space programmes. On December 19, 1958, he became the first person whose voice was broadcast from space: an Air Force Atlas missile, the kind that could carry a thermonuclear warhead, launched a satellite carrying his recorded message of "America's wish for peace on earth and good will toward men everywhere." Choosing a military rocket over a NASA one showed how deep Cold War tensions still ran, and how the administration balanced civilian and military space work.

The road to the Moon

Human spaceflight advanced through NASA. In April 1959 the Mercury Seven, military pilots chosen to be the first Americans in space, were introduced. Project Mercury flew a few months after Eisenhower left office and retired to Gettysburg, but he is often credited with its success. Four months after his death, and eight years after he left the White House, Americans landed on the Moon.

Sources

• National Park Service, Eisenhower National Historic Site, "Eisenhower and NASA." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/eisenhower-and-nasa.htm