00:01On this day in space
00:03In 1958, NASA was born! Yay, NASA!
00:07The space agency officially opened for business on this day.
00:10President Eisenhower had signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law two months earlier
00:15in response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik.
00:18The U.S. didn't want to get left behind in the space race,
00:20so Congress created NASA as an organized effort to advance space research and technology.
00:25NASA absorbed the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or the NACA,
00:29along with its 8,000 employees and three laboratories.
00:32And that's what happened on this day in space.
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