President Eisenhower (center) commissioned Dr. T. Keith Glennan, (right), as the first administrator for NASA and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden
(left) as deputy administrator.

On this day in 1958, the U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s activities in space. NASA has
since sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical, that
have yielded vital information about the solar system and universe. It has
also launched numerous earth-orbiting communications satellites. The
agency was created in response to the Soviet Union’s October 4, 1957
launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I.