Apr 23 1975
From The Space Library
NASA marked the 60th anniversary of the first meeting of NASA's predecessor institution, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Established by a law signed by President Woodrow Wilson 3 March 1915, NACA had 12 presidentially appointed members from the military and scientific communities "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical solution" and "to direct and conduct research and experiments in aeronautics." During its nearly half-century of operation, NACA was responsible for the technical proficiency of U.S. aviation: Early NACA wind-tunnel research yielded the unique NACA cowling and wing shapes that would dominate aeronautics into the 1940s. NASA's fundamental research and its direct application to industrial, military, and civil aviation helped create the world's greatest commercial air transportation network before World War II and the world's strongest air forces during that conflict. In 1947, it was the NACA-Air Force X-1 aircraft that broke the sound barrier.
The agency had remained small in size and budget through 1939 when 523 persons worked with $4.5 million in funds. By the mid-1940s the staff had grown to 6800 and its budget to an annual $40 million. In 1958 the National Space Act dissolved NACA, transferring its 8000 workers and "all functions, powers, duties and obligations" to the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA Release 75-86; Anderson, Orders of Magnitude, 1-3)
NASA announced the award of a $11-million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to Cutler-Hammer, Inc., AIL Div., for acquisition of the Microwave Scanning Beam Landing System ground stations for the Space Shuttle Orbiter. AIL would perform the research and development necessary to build the ground stations for the Shuttle landing sites. Groundstation hardware would be able to transmit localizer and glide slope signals to the Orbiter and respond to distance-measurement interrogations from the Orbiter. (JSC Release 75-32)
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