I guess there aren't many people in this country that haven't heard of NASA. As we all know it is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I remember thinking when it was formed, wow we now have a space agency. That was quite a thing to happen in the late 1950s. Everyone was watching scifi movies and even Scifi programs on tv and this meant that some of that stuff we were watching, was about to come true. Come true it did and it was not much later when we put men into space and then onto the moon. We know that NASA was not responsible for the first man in space but they were responsible for advancing space technology and the moon landing, but NASA didn't come out of the blue, before NASA there was another agency that was doing the same thing in the air and thinking about space.

Biplanes
Photo Source: Clipart.com

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics or NACA was formed on March 3, 1915. It lasted until October 1, 1958. This agency carried out research in aviation for this country. The agency was not an original idea, it came about because we wanted an agency like the British had. Their agency was called the British Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. I guess anyone can see how similar the names of both agencies are? At the time, the U.S. was felt to be behind in aeronautics and President Wilson wanted to get us up to snuff. We didn't even have a decent plane at the start of World War I. The agency was a small one, when it was first formed and the members were volunteers who didn't receive any salary. There were only 12 people in it. In the beginning, they were the ones that started air mail service and night flying. This was considered cutting edge technology at the time. As time went on they organized the business of flying. They were the ones that started licensing pilots and inspecting aircraft to make sure that they were safe, In 1925 they recommended the regulation of civil aeronautics.

While the U.S. languished, the rest of the world was speeding ahead with aviation. It is ironic to think that in a mere 12 years from the flight of the Wright Brothers, an American accomplishment, we had fallen to almost last place in aviation in the western world. There almost seems to be a parallel here between us and the Soviet Union in the middle and late 1950s. In that time we let ourselves get passed in rocket technology and had a rude awakening, it was called Sputnik and later Gargarin.

In 1925 the NACA had a research laboratory at Langley. It wasn't very big and consisted of only 100 employees. It is said that out of every government agency this was the least political and it was engaged in pure research. Anyone who needed aeronautical data could obtain it from the NACA. One of the great things about this agency was the freedom for researchers. They were allowed to develop their research along paths that they thought would be productive and were not restricted. I don't think that you have too much of this going on in NASA today. It is said, that because of this independence, that the NACA had become the premier aeronautical organization in the world in the late 1920s and 1930s.

The agency won the Collier Trophy in 1929 for the development of a wind tunnel that held a full sized plane. The tunnel led to much more streamlined designs. The wind tunnels became more advanced as the first refrigerated tunnel to test wing icing came on line. Due to impending war clouds, Congress enlarged the NACA in 1940. Another laboratory was opened near San Francisco. The role of the NACA changed during World War II. It had been an agency of innovation, but during the war it had become an agency that was solving problems and innovation in new designs took a back seat. This led to the U.S. falling behind in jet aircraft and our scramble near the end of the war to catch up. An aircraft engine laboratory was being built near Cleveland. In 1945 the government realized that we had to be a world leader in new technology and had the NACA open a new research center in Virginia named the Wallops Flight Center. NACA was now into rockets along with advanced aeronautics.

The NACA was the one most responsible for the swept back wing concept. It was developed in 1945. Working with the U.S. Army Air Force, the agency helped develop the XS-1 rocket plane. It broke the sound barrier on November 14, 1947. NACA developed a supersonic wind tunnel and shared the Collier Trophy in 1947 for it development with the famous Chuck Yeager and Lawrence Bell. More and better wind tunnels were being developed by the agency and in 1951 a transonic wind tunnel was developed. By the time the early 1950s came along the focus at NACA changed to planes that could go very high. I am talking about planes that could fly out of the atmosphere. Yep we are talking about space planes over 50 years ago.

Quick Time Move of the X-4 in 1951 - 1.14 Megs
Movie Source: NASA

The Soviets were accomplishing things in space in leaps and bounds. Our government felt that a new agency geared more to space flight was needed and NASA was formed to do the job. We all know what happened after that.