What is NASA?

Get ready to blast off into outer space with Mira and Finn on History's Not Boring! Have you ever looked up at the stars and wondered who helps humans explore the galaxy? The answer is NASA! But how did this amazing space agency even begin? Our story starts all the way back in October 1957. The Soviet Union shocked the whole world by launching a tiny, beeping metal ball called Sputnik into orbit! Americans were worried they were losing the ultimate space race! To catch up, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law in 1958 creating a brand new agency: NASA! What started as a fierce competition turned into one of the greatest adventures in human history. Within just 11 years, American astronauts were walking on the Moon! Since then, NASA has sent robotic probes to every single planet, built the incredible Hubble Space Telescope, and helped create the International Space Station. Now, they are even building the new Artemis rockets to take humans back to the Moon! Join us to discover how a race to the stars ended up uniting people to explore the wonders of the universe!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoli.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn, and I am so ready for today's adventure.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

We have an absolutely incredible topic today, and it was actually inspired by a listener named Henry.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Oh yeah! Henry is seven years old and lives in Orlando, Florida. And get this, he can see real rockets launching right from his own backyard.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

That is seriously the coolest thing ever. Imagine sitting on your porch and feeling the ground rumble as a massive rocket blasts off into space.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Seeing those huge rockets made Henry wonder, how did all of this start? Who decided we should go to space in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

That is exactly what we are going to explore today. We are talking about the thrilling, high-speed and super expensive creation of NASA.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

NASA! The space people! Did it start with giant lasers and astronauts?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Not quite. Actually, the biggest space adventure in human history didn't start with an American rocket at all. It started with a metal ball about the size of a beach ball.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Wait, what? A beach ball? How did a metal beach ball start the space agency? Close your eyes and picture this.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

The date is October 4, 1957. A secret launch pad in Kazakhstan lights up the night sky. A massive rocket roars to life, carrying a 184-pound silver sphere called Sputnik 1.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

184 pounds? That is one heavy beach ball. What did it do?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

It went all the way up into orbit and started flying around the Earth at 18,000 miles per hour. And it changed the entire world forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Okay, 18,000 miles per hour is incredibly fast. But who launched Sputnik? Was it the Americans?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Nope. It was launched by the Soviet Union, which was a huge, powerful country that included Russia. And back in 1957, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a very tense rivalry called the Cold War.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Oh, I know about this. They weren't fighting with armies, but they were competing to see who had the best technology and the strongest military, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

So when the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik 1 into space, it absolutely shocked the United States. Americans were terrified. But why were they terrified of a metal ball? Did it have weapons? It didn't have weapons. It just had four long antennas trailing behind it, and a radio transmitter. As it zoomed over America every 98 minutes, anyone with a ham radio could hear it broadcasting a constant signal. Beep, beep, beep.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

So people could literally hear the Soviet Union flying right over their houses?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yes, and that was the scary part. If the Soviet Union could build a rocket powerful enough to put a 184-pound metal ball into space, what else could they put up there? Could they drop bombs from space?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yikes! I would be looking up at the sky every single night.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Thousands of Americans did exactly that. They bought binoculars and stood in their backyards trying to spot it. The news called it the Sputnik Crisis. America was officially losing the space race.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Well, America couldn't just sit there and let the Soviets have all of space to themselves. What did they do?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

The president of the United States at the time was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He knew America had to get organized and fast. Before 1958, America had different military groups all working on their own rockets, and they kept failing. One American rocket exploded just two seconds after liftoff. It was embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Ha, whoops! Two seconds? That's not getting you to space.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

President Eisenhower decided all the best scientists needed to work together in one brand new civilian agency. So, on July 29, 1958, he signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Wait, I know this. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. That spells NASA! You got it!

SPEAKER_01 4:29

NASA officially opened for business on October 1st, 1958. Their mission was clear. Catch up to the Soviets, invent incredible space technology, and explore the universe peacefully. Did it work right away?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Did they start winning?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Actually, no. The Soviets kept beating them. In 1961, the Soviet Union put the first human being into space, a man named Yuri Gagarin. America was still behind.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Oh come on! How are they ever going to win the space race if the Soviets kept doing everything first?

SPEAKER_01 5:08

It took a bold new president to change the game. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave a famous speech. He looked at the nation and said, America was going to do the impossible. He promised that before the decade was over, an American would walk on the Moon and return safely to Earth.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

The 1960s were almost over by then. He gave NASA less than eight years to build a ship that could travel 238,900 miles through the deadly vacuum of space.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Exactly. NASA had barely put a man into orbit for a few minutes, and now they had to figure out how to land on another world.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

The pressure was intense. Okay, I need numbers. To get all the way to the moon, they must have needed a monster rocket.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Oh, they built a monster alright. The Apollo programme needed the Saturn V rocket. Finn, this machine was 363 feet tall. That is as tall as a 36-story skyscraper. And it could fly! A flying skyscraper? How heavy was it? Fully fuelled, the Saturn V weighed over six million pounds. When it launched, it burned 20 tons of fuel every single second. The flames coming out of the bottom were 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

20 tonnes of fuel a second? How did they even figure out how to build something like that?

SPEAKER_01 6:50

By hiring literally the smartest people in the world. Project Apollo cost about$25.4 billion back then. If you adjust that to today's money, it's over$250 billion.$250 billion? How many people worked on it? Around 400,000 people. Engineers, mathematicians like Catherine Johnson, factory workers, and test pilots. It was a massive team effort. And on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 launched. Did they make it? Did they beat Kennedy's deadline? They did! On July 20th, 1969, just 11 years after NASA was created, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the dusty surface of the moon. He said, that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

That gives me goosebumps. They actually won the space race.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Half a billion people around the world watched it live on television. America had achieved the impossible thanks to this amazing agency called NASA.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So after they went to the moon, did NASA just close up shop? Like, okay, we won, everybody go home? Definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Getting to the moon was just the beginning. NASA sent the Voyager probes into deep space. Voyager 1 launched in 1977 and is now more than 15 billion miles away from Earth. 15 billion miles? That is completely mind-blowing. And remember how NASA started because of competition with the Soviet Union? Well, the coolest plot twist in history is that space ended up uniting us. Today, 15 different countries work together on the International Space Station.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I love that. Working as a team instead of fighting. How big is the space station anyway?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

It's massive. It is the size of an American football field and weighs almost a million pounds. It zooms around the Earth at 5 miles per second, which means the astronauts see 16 sunrises every single day.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

16 sunrises a day? That's so weird! Okay, tell me some other weird facts about NASA.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Did you know that the camera inside your cell phone was actually developed from tiny cameras NASA invented for spacecraft? And memory foam mattresses? NASA invented that stuff to cushion astronauts during takeoff.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

So I sleep on space technology every night. That is so cool. Are we ever going back to the moon?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yes. Right now, NASA is running the Artemis programme. They've built an even bigger rocket called the Space Launch System to send humans back to the Moon very soon. Alright, Finn, it is time for the quiz. Are you ready to test your space knowledge? I've got my astronaut helmet on and I am ready. Hit me! Okay, first question. What year did the Soviet Union launch Sputnik 1 and shock the world? Next one, this is tricky. Which US president signed the law to create NASA in 1958? Question 3. What was the name of the massive 363-foot-tall rocket that took astronauts to the moon? Alright, here's number four. Roughly how many people worked on the Apollo program to get humans to the Moon? Last question. What is the name of NASA's modern programme that is building rockets to return to the Moon today? Great job! Let's go through the answers and see how you did. The answer to question one is They launched Sputnik 1 in 1957. For question two, it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower who created NASA. Number three, the answer is that giant flying skyscraper was the Saturn V rocket. Question 4. An incredible 400,000 people work together on Project Apollo. And the final answer is NASA's new moon missions are called the Artemis program.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I am just so amazed that 400,000 people could work together to figure out how to send people to another world. Human beings can do incredible things when we team up.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

It really is one of the greatest adventures in history. And Henry, we hope you keep watching those amazing rockets blast off into the sky from Orlando.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Hey everyone, if you love learning about rockets and astronauts with us, please leave us a five-star review. Just scroll down on your podcast app and tap those five stars.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

It helps us bring more awesome history to you. Oh, and don't forget to head over to our site, kidopoly.com.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

We've got tons of fun learning games and cool activities there to explore. And if you want a shout out on the show like Henry, or just want to say hi, ask your parents to email us at hello at kidopoly.com.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Keep looking up at the stars. See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye, everybody.