NASA

Beginning in 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) began
experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s,
there was challenge to launch an artificial satellite for the International Geophysical
Year (1957–1958). An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard. After
the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) on
October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling
space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security
and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and
swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower counseled more deliberate measures.
The result was a consensus that the White House forged among key interest groups,
including scientists committed to basic research; the Pentagon which had to match
the Soviet military achievement; corporate America looking for new business; and a
strong new trend in public opinion looking up to space exploration.

On January 12, 1958, NACA organized a "Special Committee on Space Technology,"

headed by Guyford Stever.On January 14, 1958, NACA Director Hugh
Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology," stating,

It is of great urgency and importance to our country both from consideration of our
prestige as a nation as well as military necessity that this challenge [Sputnik] be met
by an energetic program of research and development for the conquest of space ... It
is accordingly proposed that the scientific research be the responsibility of a national
civilian agency ... NACA is capable, by rapid extension and expansion of its effort, of
providing leadership in space technology.

While this new federal agency would conduct all non-military space activity,
the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to
develop space technology for military application.

On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act,
establishing NASA. When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA absorbed the
43-year-old NACA intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of US$100 million,
three major research laboratories (Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames
Aeronautical Laboratory, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory) and two small test
facilities. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval
Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA. A significant contributor to
NASA's entry into the Space Race with the Soviet Union was the technology from
the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who was now working for
the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), which in turn incorporated the technology
of American scientist Robert Goddard's earlier works. Earlier research efforts within
the US Air Force and many of ARPA's early space programs were also transferred to
NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
contractor facility operated by the California Institute of Technology.

Sub-branches of physics that NASA researched:

1) Thermodynamic
2) High energy and plasma physics
3) Nuclear physics
4) Atomic physics