A key move in this direction was the setting up, by act of Congress on July 29, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an independent government agency. NASA is placed in control of the nation’s advanced civilian research program and is specifically charged with furthering all nonmilitary space activities sponsored by the United States. This includes taking over the most important aeronautical research facility, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which has become the nucleus of the NASA. Close coordination is required between NASA and its military counterpart, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). NASA started operations with $300,000,000, with indications that its budget for fiscal 1959 will reach a half-billion dollars. ARPA is scheduled to spend about $173.6 billion on space research during fiscal 1959. This includes some $50,000,000 for ‘man-in-space’ work, a project for making preliminary studies of human capabilities in space.
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