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.

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11, the U.S. spacecraft that had taken the
first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

United States President Richard Nixon was in the central Pacific recovery area
to welcome the Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the USS Hornet, prime recovery
ship for the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, on July 24, 1969. The
Apollo 11 astronauts are, from left, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz
Aldrin. They were quarantined after splashdown to ensure they did not bring
back any contamination from the moon.

Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. (February 28, 1924 – July 22, 2019)

(AP) – Behind America’s late leap into orbit and triumphant small step on the
moon was the agile mind and guts-of-steel of Chris Kraft, making split-second decisions that propelled the nation to once unimaginable heights.

Kraft, the creator and longtime leader of NASA’s Mission Control, died  today
in Houston, just two days after the 50th anniversary of what was his and
NASA’s crowning achievement: Apollo 11’s moon landing. He was 95.

Neil Armstrong, the first man-on-the-moon, told The Associated Press in 2011, “Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. never flew in space, but "held the success
or failure of American human spaceflight in his hands."

Then-President Ronald Reagan (center) being briefed by Chris Kraft (right) in Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center in Houston,
in November 1981. (NASA via AP, File)

   
 
TIM MAGUIRE
   

Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface. 

First footprint on the Moon (left) was that of astronaut Neil
Armstrong (right).

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Jr. poses for a photograph beside the U.S. flag.
(Neil Armstrong/NASA via AP)

CARLATA BRADLEY

The Eagle prepares to land: Photo shows Lunar Module ‘Eagle’ photographed from Command Module ‘Columbia’.

The Command Service Module Columbia.

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 made thirty orbits of the moon which allowed
them to view the landing site: the southern Sea of Tranquility, one of the
most suitably flat areas. This area had confirmed by the Apollo 10 ‘dress
rehearsal’ mission in which the crew captured vital film footage and photos 
while orbiting the moon.