NASA First Mission Launched

NASA First Mission Launched, 1958-1998
1 Oct. 1958 On this date the National Aeronautics and Space Administration began operation. At the time it consisted of only about 8,000 employees and an annual budget of $100 million. In addition to a small headquarters staff in Washington that directed operations, NASA had at the time three major research laboratories inherited from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics-the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory established in 1918, the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory activated near San Francisco in 1940, and the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory built at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1941-and two small test facilities, one for high-speed flight research at Muroc Dry Lake in the high desert of California and one for sounding rockets at Wallops Island, Virginia. It soon added several other government research organizations.