In 1958, the United States government created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

NASA has achieved some of the most incredible accomplishments in human history and has also suffered some incredible failures.

Yet this agency wasn't created out of nothing.

It has a past that goes back far earlier than most people realize.

Learn more about the history of NASA and how it came to be on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. While NASA as an official government entity dates back to 1958, the predecessor

organization which founded NASA actually dates back much earlier.

The first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics, And the first government organization to promote Aeronautical

research was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

This group was actually created in 1915

during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.

It was established during the First World War as an emergency measure,

even though the U.S. had not formally entered the war at this point.

It was following the footsteps of similar

organizations which were established in France, Germany, and Britain.

According to the Congressional Resolution which established the committee, quote,

it shall be the duty of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution."

The committee initially consisted of 12 members, all of which were unpaid. The organization grew slowly but surely over the years. It had a hundred employees in

1922 and 426 in 1938 on the eve of the Second World War.

They created several research facilities around the country, including the Langley Memorial

Aeronautics Laboratory in Virginia, the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in California, and the Murak Flight Test Unit also in California.

They created expensive wind tunnels and then made them available to American aircraft

manufacturers.

...