It was the competition between the United States and the USSR that gave rise to the birth of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a US government agency responsible for the civil space program, as well as aeronautical and aerospace research (NASA). Its architect, President Eisenhower, in the middle of the Cold War – it was 1958 – wanted to stop Moscow, which had launched the first artificial satellite Sputnik in 1957, four months before the launch of the American Explorer 1.
Thus began a frenetic race to explore and conquer space, which would keep millions of people in suspense. The launch of the Soviet Gagarin into orbit ousted Washington. But the arrival on the Moon, in 1969, of Armstrong and Aldrin, the first humans to walk on its surface, placed NASA on the winners’ podium.
The institution remains in the gap. Among its most notable projects, the Artemis program, which foresees that a woman will reach the Moon for the first time in 2024.
