NASA Headquarters and Centers
NASA Headquarters
When the first artificial satellite of Earth slipped across a backdrop
of stars on October 4, 1957, it was heralded in the United States not as
a triumph of science and technology, but a bold, startling challenge to
America's ideological standing in the world community of nations.
The former Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 satellite sparked a U.S. response,
motivating the U.S. Congress to hammer out in early 1958 the National Aeronautics
and Space Act. Signed into law on July 29 by then President Dwight Eisenhower,
the Act transformed the existing National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA) into a U.S. civilian space enterprise. That enterprise was named
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
On October 1, 1958, just short of a year after Sputnik 1 was cast into
space, NASA officially began to blueprint the nation's space program. A
fledgling NASA plan of action included human space exploration as well
as an agenda of robotic exploration of the Moon and neighboring planets.
Hungering for leadership in space exploration and aeronautics, NASA rapidly
developed skills and abilities second to none. This striving for excellence
led to the creation of NASA field centers spread across the country.
| A multi-industry team lead by Lockheed
Martin Skunk Works was selected by NASA to build and flight-test a sub-scale
X-33 technology demonstrator, shown in this computer-generated concept.
Incorporating many proven technologies, this concept could boost the United
States back into dominance over the worldwide commercial launch industry. |
Considered NASA's crowning achievement in the late 1960s was the first
human footfall on the surface of the Moon. But perhaps of greater significance
was the workforce required to place astronauts on that alien world. Translating
Apollo from rhetoric to reality took a NASA managed team of highly skilled
government, industry and university talent. As one of NASA's technological
high water marks, Apollo comprised more than 20,000 companies and some
400,000 people across the country.
The year 1973 found NASA Headquarters in transition, moving to respond
to a post-Apollo America, a time frame of budget constraints, alternative
national priorities, and a seemingly sudden retrenchment in the country
setting any new course in space.
The Skylab project was, in effect, a place holder, using remaining Apollo
and Saturn V hardware. This experimental space station was rocketed into
orbit in 1973, later to be followed by sets of astronauts who lived and
worked aboard the facility throughout the year and into early 1974. Skylab
became a cost-effective interim substitute for NASA's hoped-for long duration,
permanent space laboratory.
For NASA Headquarters, political and White House backing had melded
to support development of a reusable transportation system for hauling
people and cargo into Earth orbit. Approved the year earlier by then President
Richard Nixon, work in 1972 was in full-swing on moving a Space Shuttle
program from viewgraph presentations to reality. Bolstered by the prospects
of detente between the then Soviet Union and the United States, Nixon had
also given NASA the green light to proceed with a joint space mission between
the two space superpowers. This effort was successfully carried out two
years later as the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
The year 1973 saw progress along the aeronautical side of NASA. Dryden
Flight Research Center carried out the first piloted flight of the X-24B,
a craft built to imitate an unpowered landing of a vehicle returning from
space to a runway landing.
Launching pads at Cape Canaveral, Florida were busy in 1973 as NASA
launched in April the Pioneer 11 interplanetary probe on a fly-by mission
to Jupiter and Saturn. Several months later, in November, an Atlas Centaur
hurled into space Mariner 10, a spacecraft that years later encountered
Venus, then Mercury in the first demonstration of gravity-assist trajectory
change.
Now decades beyond Apollo, Skylab, the early Pioneer and Mariner missions,
the NASA of today is far different in organization and purpose. The civilian
space enterprise born by Cold War rivalry and one-upmanship is no longer.
Relevancy to NASA's ultimate stake-holder--the public--is top priority
in a budgetary climate that dictates tough choices among many opportunities.
NASA is resolute in its obligation to provide its customers excellent products
and services in the most cost-effective and timely manner.
| Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, Commander
of the Apollo 17 mission is photographed by Astronaut Schmitt whose photo
is reflected in the gold visor. The climax of NASA's achievement in the
late 1960s was the first human footfall on the moon. |
A new NASA has been formed, focused on science and technology programs
that enhance and enrich the lives of all Americans. NASA is an investment
in the country's future, an agency empowered with a vision to boldly expand
frontiers in air and space, inspiring and serving America to benefit the
quality of life here on Earth. To attain and sustain this vision, NASA
Head quarters in Washington, D.C. has established an ongoing and iterative
Strategic Management Process.
NASA Headquarters provides the organizational structure for the entire
space agency. This duty is based on two primary levels of management responsibility.
The first is Agency management, which primarily resides at Headquarters.
The second is Strategic Enterprise management, which includes managing
individual NASA Centers and programs. In essence, NASA Headquarters has
become "corporate headquarters." It oversees a set of Strategic
Enterprises, and develops NASA's strategy in accordance with what?, why?,
and for whom? guidelines that directs the Nation's civil aeronautics and
space ventures.
Agency management serves as the principal interface with the stakeholders,
including the Administration and Congress. It is the external focal point
for accountability, communication and liaison. Agency management provides
budget integration, long-term NASA/stakeholder-focused institutional investment
strategy, NASA policy and standards, and Agency functional leadership.
The framework for today's NASA rests on four primary "Strategic
Enterprises," each delegated to one or more space agency centers.
These are:
Mission to Planet Earth Enterprise:
Goddard Space Flight Center
Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Enterprise:
Ames Research Center
Langley Research Center
Lewis Research Center
Dryden Flight Research Center
Human Exploration and Development of Space Enterprise:
Johnson Space Center
Kennedy Space Center
Marshall Space Flight Center
Stennis Space Center
Space Science Enterprise:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
These Strategic Enterprises comprise an integrated national aeronautics
and space program. Synergism of broad purposes, technology requirements,
workforce skills, facilities, and many other dimensions was the basis for
amalgamating these activities within NASA in the Space Act of 1958, and
the benefits remain strong today.
In further detail, each Enterprise is defined as the following:
Mission to Planet Earth Enterprise
Dedicated to understanding the total Earth system and the effects of
natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. The Mission
to Planet Earth (MTPE) Enterprise is pioneering the new discipline of Earth
system science, with a near-term emphasis on global climate change. Space-based
sensors, aircraft, and platforms on Earth offer capabilities presently
being used or under development that yield new scientific understanding
and practical benefits to the Nation. Today's program is laying the foundation
for long-term environment and climate monitoring and prediction. The outcome
is the major contribution to the scientific foundation for sustainable
development.
Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Enterprise
In March of 1997, NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin challenged the
Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Enterprise to set bold
objectives for the future. These goals are grouped into three areas, or
"Three Pillars:" Global Civil Aviation, Revolutionary New Technology
Leaps, and Access to Space. Within the pillars are technology goals, which
are framed in terms of a final outcome--NASA-developed technologies being
incorporated into industry. Goldin said, "These goals will stretch
the boundaries of our knowledge and capabilities. They require taking risks
and performing the long-term research and development programs needed to
keep the United States as the global leader in aeronautics and space."
| Mariner 10, launched in 1973, photographs
Venus the following year. The craft represented the first demonstration
of gravity-assist trajectory change. |
The Enterprise will pioneer the identification, development, verification,
transfer, application, and commercialization of high-payoff aeronautics
technologies. It seeks to promote economic growth and national security
through safe, superior and environmentally compatible U.S. civil and military
aircraft and through a safe, efficient national aviation system. This Enterprise
will work closely in a national alliance with its aeronautics customers,
including U.S. industry, the university community, the Department of Defense
(DoD), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to ensure that national
investments in aeronautical research and technology are effectively defined
and coordinated.
Lastly, the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) program is developing and
demonstrating new technologies for the next generation of space transportation
systems. These technologies are moving forward the day when the cost per
pound of moving a payload to low Earth orbit can be reduced by an order
of magnitude, from $10,000 per pound to $1,000 per pound.
Human Exploration and Development of Space Enterprise
The mission of this Enterprise is to open the space frontier by exploring,
using and enabling the development of space and to expand the human experience
into the far reaches of space. In exploring space, the Human Exploration
and Development of Space (HEDS) Enterprise brings people and machines together
to overcome the challenges of distance, time and environment. Robotic science
missions survey and characterize other bodies as precursors to eventual
human missions. In using space, HEDS emphasizes learning how to live and
work there, utilizing the resources and unique environment. The Space Shuttle
and the International Space Station pave the way for sustained human presence
in space through critical research on human adaptation.
Space Science Enterprise
This Enterprise is multifaceted: science, technology, education and
public outreach. The Space Science Enterprise serves the human quest to
understand our origin, our existence and our fate. While fulfilling this
quest, it seeks to inspire the Nation and the world, to open young minds
to broader perspectives on the future and to bring home to every person
on Earth the experience of exploring space. Did life arise elsewhere in
the universe? Are there worlds around other stars? What is the universe
and how did it come into being? This Enterprise addresses these questions
and others by establishing a continuum of exploration and science. A virtual
presence is to be created in probing new territories within and beyond
our solar system.
Each of these Enterprises will develop and verify enabling, cutting-edge
technologies for future space science, exploration, and commercial missions
and will identify and mature high-risk/high-payoff advanced concepts that
enable revolutionary new space activities. In addition, they will nurture
world-class capabilities that are critical to the development of technologies.
Much cross-cutting of purpose occurs between the Enterprises. The HEDS
Enterprise, for instance, provides the Space Science and Aeronautics and
Space Transportation Technology Enterprises the means to benefit from human
presence in the unique environment of space. Conversely, the Space Science
and Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Enterprises provide
the foundation for the HEDS Enterprise by, among other things, undertaking
precursor robotic missions and developing needed knowledge and technology.
The Space Science Enterprise enriches the MTPE Enterprise with studies
of the Sun, the other planets and the near-Earth environment for their
relevance to our understanding of the Earth. The Aeronautics and Space
Transportation Technology Enterprise and the HEDS Enterprise are mutually
supportive in high-speed aerodynamics, vehicle control systems, and crew
accommodation research. These are but a few examples of the mutually beneficial
interactions among NASA's Strategic Enterprises.
| Workers at Cape Canaveral get one final
look at the Mars Pathfinder before it is sealed inside a protective payload
fairing for flight. The mission, launched December 2, 1996 arrived at Mars
July 4, 1997. |
NASA's Centers are responsible for implementing space agency plans,
programs and activities as an integral part of the Strategic Enterprises.
Center missions identify the primary concentration of capabilities to support
the accomplishment of Strategic Enterprise goals. Meanwhile, Centers of
Excellence are focused, agency-wide leadership responsibilities in a specific
area of technology or knowledge.
Aligned with NASA's Strategic Enterprises, assigned center missions
and the various Centers of Excellence, the space agency is embarking on
an exciting and impressive research schedule.
In the area of aeronautics, new strategic goals have been developed
with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Defense
(DoD) and industry partners. This combined effort is aimed at a major improvement
in the safety of flight, cutting in half the cost of air travel, and equally
aggressive reductions in aircraft noise and emissions.
The Origins Program has been established, to look at many facets of
the Universe, its creation, the formation of chemical elements and of galaxies,
stars, and planets. A major program in Astrobiology is also being pursued,
bringing together the best minds in the field of life sciences to research
the chain of processes leading to the formation and early evolution of
the simplest forms of life in the Universe.
Other highlights of the Origins Program include an accelerated pace
for the Mars Surveyor program, assuring a sample return mission from the
red planet by the year 2005. A Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF)
is to be launched in 2001, a prelude to building ever larger and more powerful
Next Generation Space Telescopes that can observe the Universe to its very
beginnings and begin a search to pinpoint Earth-like planets circling other
stars.
Excellent progress is being made on the International Space Station.
First launchings of key station elements are near at hand. An unparalleled
level of experience has been gained in the past few years, working with
other nations toward a common purpose. From this first step, new trails
can be blazed to other planets and explore the vast expanse of space.
NASA's new Strategic Management Process has been developed as an integrated
approach to the planning, implementation, execution, and evaluation of
the space agency's activities. This process enables NASA to deliver quality
products and services to the agency's customers and stakeholders and to
its ultimate beneficiary--the public.
| For the first and probably only time before
they are linked together 220 miles up in space, the United States modules
for the International Space Station are side-by-side. The Space Station
will be a permanent orbiting laboratory in space. |
NASA Headquarters has undertaken a major restructuring of the agency's
national purpose and has clarified its scientific and technological agenda
as the 21st century looms on the horizon. To explore new worlds, advance
key technologies, learn to live in space, push the boundaries of flight,
understand our changing planet, and inspire America's youth, these are
the underpinnings of a revitalized and vibrant NASA.
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