OTD in Space - October 1: Happy Birthday, NASA!

On Oct. 1, 1958, NASA was born! The space agency officially opened for business on this day.

President Eisenhower had signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law two months earlier in response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik. The U.S. didn't want to get left behind in the space race, so Congress created NASA as an organized effort to advance space research and technology. NASA absorbed the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) along with its 8,000 employees and three laboratories.