Dear classmates,
Today I would like to
talk about the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, as known as NASA.
The NASA is an
independent agency of the United States government and it is
responsible for research in the areas of Aeronautics, space and
aerospace.
On October 1, 1958 the
NASA started officially working in their Headquarters in the
capital of the USA, Washington D.C.
All previous agencies
in the area of Aeronautics in the USA were reorganized and joined the
NASA. After its formation , they started operating with 8000
employees. Currently more than 18000 people work for NASA.
They tried to create as
fast as possible new structures to influence, in the most effective
way, the american space programm.
The first director of
NASA was Keith Glennan, the actual is called Charles Bolden.
NASA´s first projects
dealt with space exploration. The Mercury-Programm was their first
step to investigate under which conditions a Human could survive in
space.
From this point on,
there were many other projects. One of them was called the Apollo
Programm, which began in 1962 and ended in 1971.
The biggest success was
the Apollo 11 Mission, which took Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and
Edwin Aldrin to the moon.
I am sure you know the
famous quotation in german „Das ist ein kleiner Schritt für den
Menschen… (aber) ein riesiger Sprung für die Menschheit.“,
which was said by Armstrong after he put his feed on the surface of
the moon.
This
is the original speech from him: *abspielen*
Another big project, in
which NASA is involved, you will surely know. It is the International
Space Station also known as ISS...
*this is an image
of the ISS from outside, and this is the inside view*
The
International Space Station started being built step by step from
1998 on. Since this time, space organisations from different
countries have done many scientific experiments on the ISS, for
example how Astronauts in the future can perform on longer missions
to the solar system, including journeys to astroids and mars…
Already at the time of the apollo programm, NASA thought about a
manned mission to mars, but after the moon landing they did not
continue with that Idea.
Since the mars mission
plans became actual again, NASA is developing new space crafts. Here
you can see a picture of the new Orion space ship, it should take
astrounauts onto further distances in space.
It also exists a TV
programm operated by NASA, which you can see in the internet… for
more informations you can visit the official NASA´s website.
This was a short
overview about NASA, I hope you enjoyed it … thank you