So What IS NASA? And What's the Big Deal about American Space Travel?

NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was created by the United States Congress and President Eisenhower in October 1958, "to provide for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth's atmosphere and for other purposes." The American space program was a direct reaction to Soviet’s launching Sputnik, the first satellite ever to go into space, in 1957. NASA focuses on technological innovation by encouraging small, high-tech companies to partner with NASA to help meet its research and development needs in key technology areas. NASA started out with only three major research laboratories - Langely, Ames, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory. Today, the space program has twenty large research laboratories throughout the United States. NASA, although they have since ceased sending people to space, has hosted 135 space trips in 30 years. The U.S. is now considered to be at the forefront of space technology and research.

......TIMELINE OF FIRST 20 YEARS......

• Mercury's single astronaut program (flights during 1961-1963) to ascertain if a human could survive in space

• From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space (May 1961)

• Project Gemini (flights during 1965-1966) with two astronauts to practice space operations, especially rendezvous and docking of spacecraft and extravehicular activity (EVA)
• Project Apollo (flights during 1968-1972) to explore the Moon. 

• Robotic missions to the Moon Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter), Venus (Pioneer Venus), Mars (Mariner 4, Viking 1 and 2), and the outer planets (Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2)

• Aeronautics research to enhance air transport safety, reliability, efficiency, and speed (X-15 hypersonic flight, lifting body flight research, avionics and electronics studies, propulsion technologies, structures research, aerodynamics investigations)

• Remote-sensing Earth satellites for information gathering (Landsat satellites for environmental monitoring)

• Applications satellites for communications (Echo 1, TIROS, and Telstra) and weather monitoring

• An orbital workshop for astronauts, Skylab

• A reusable spacecraft for traveling to and from Earth orbit, the Space Shuttle

• Pioneer 10/Pioneer 11, launched on March 2, 1972 /April 5, 1973, traveled to Jupiter and Saturn to study the composition of interplanetary space

To work at NASA is considered a coveted experience. However, for such a thirsted for job, the pay isn't very incredible. Income starts at $60,000 for aerospace engineers and may increases to $100,000. Astronauts, which in the US are typically aviators who pass the exams, are paid $100,000 their entire careers. According to the 2013 Junior Archive Teens & Careers Survey, 61% of teenagers are interested in working in a STEM field. American high schools are now beginning to integrate more STEM opportunities into education - such as "MakerSpace" and internships. A makerspace is a laboratory and setting where "where young people have an opportunity to explore their own interests, learn to use tools and materials, and develop creative projects. It could be embedded inside an existing organization or standalone on its own. It could be a simple room in a building or an outbuilding that’s closer to a shed. The key is that it can adapt to a wide variety of uses and can be shaped by educational purposes as well as the students’ creative goals." As of 2013, 90,000 people were employed as aerospace engineers. There has never been more than 150 astronauts in the United States at any given time.

Some ethical repercussions people have on space travel is what is to come in the future because the idea of “commercializing” space and to eventually send more humans to live in outer space. This brings about a big question of how people will begin to “claim” ownership of parts of space and how to determine who gets to have what in space.

Sources: https://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/makerspaces-participatory-learning-and-libraries/