| Criticized for allowing the Soviet Union to launch the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth (Sputnik I, on October 4, 1957), U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation this day creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA was well under way by the early years of President John F. Kennedy's administration, when Kennedy proposed that the United States put a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, leading to the establishment of the Apollo program. Later ... |