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Sixty years ago, stimulated by competition with the Soviet Union, the United States created NASA, the starting point for a space adventure that would take them to the moon.
Today, the agency struggles to reinvent itself Since its birth, NASA has challenged the limits of space exploration and has also experienced resounding failures, such as the explosion of two ferries in 1986 and 2003, with the balance of 14 dead
His ambition to return to the deep space will face a funding problem, which would prevent him from returning to the Moon in the next decade and to March in the 2030s.
become dependent on the private sector and has contracts with SpaceX and Boeing to send astronauts into space from 2019, as soon as their manned vessels are ready .
And it is that the agency I can not send astronauts alone in space since 2011, when they closed their space shuttle program after 30 years.
They must now pay $ 80 million per seat to Russia to send Americans to the International Space Station (ISS) in a Soyuz capsule
The Beginnings
In 1957, the Soviet Union sends its first satellite in space with Sputnik 1, while American attempts, mainly under the auspices of the army, fail miserably
President of the time , Dwight D. Eisenhower then asked Congress to create a separate civil space agency. On July 29, 1958, he signed the law establishing NASA 's National Aeronautics and Space Authority.
The Soviets won a new round in April 1961, when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. A month later, the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announced his intention to send a man to the moon in the late 1960s. Thus was born the Apollo program
. Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to place himself in the Earth's orbit. And in 1969 Neil Armstrong goes into history as the first man to walk on the moon.
"Apollo was a unilateral demonstration of the power of a nation," remembers John Logsdon Professor Emeritus of the Institute of Space Policy of George Washington University [19659003"ThatKennedydecidedtousethespaceprogramasadeclaredinstrumentofgeopoliticalcompetencewaswhatmadeNASAanationalpoliticalinstrumentwithaveryhighbudgetallocation"hesaidAFP
During the Apollo era, no less than 5% of the national budget went to NASA. Today, this proportion has exceeded 0.5% of the federal budget (about 18,000 million dollars a year), and NASA no longer has the same weight in national politics, according to Logsdon.
New era
NASA experienced other moments of glory in the 1980s, such as the birth of the space shuttle program, and then in 1998, with the start of operations from the ISS.
But what is happening today? President Donald Trump defended the return to the moon, mentioning a moon bridge that allows a continuous flow of spaceships and people who visit the satellite, and that would serve as a starting point for a trip eventual to Mars.
He also called for the creation of a space force, a sixth branch of the armed forces that would be geared to defend the interests of the United States.
NASA has long been considered a leader in space innovation. serious competition today. "You have something like 70 countries that one way or another are involved in the space business," says Logsdon.
Instead of competing with international space agencies, "the focus has been on cooperation" Teasel Muir-Harmony curator of the National Air Museum and l & # 39; Space
NASA's highest authority, Jim Bridenstine reiterated Last week, he wants to work with other countries with interests in space. He mentioned the possibility of strengthening cooperation with China and said that he had recently traveled to Israel to meet groups working on a lunar lander.
His predecessor, Charles Bolden warned against the risk of re-offending. the errors of the time of the ferries, when the United States ended their program without another spacecraft being ready to take over
"We can not tolerate another emptiness like this one". human mission on the moon in just five years, NASA plans to spend about $ 10 billion in lunar exploration with a budget of nearly $ 20 billion for 2019
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