NASA is the most famous space agency in the world, responsible for a variety of technological developments and scientific discoveries, and it was officially founded by President Eisenhower in 1958. NASA has been turning its attention to stars in recent decades. But what if NASA is not real? Today we will unveil its veil and answer this unusual question: What if NASA had never existed?
In fact, before NASA, there was already a National Aviation Advisory Committee. NACA was established as early as 1915, and it helped the United States and its allies eventually win the first and World War II . However, in the 1850s, it became necessary to establish a special NASA. This is largely due to the Soviet space program on the other side of the world. The rival Soviet Union successfully launched Satellites 1 and 2 at the end of 1957, and the US government knew that they had to compete directly (fast).
It is reported that Eisenhower received four proposals in total, and a group led by S. Paul Johnston, then director of the American Institute of Aeronautics Sciences, was shortlisted. Turning NACA to NASA (as we know it now) is actually the third option on Johnston’s list, and Eisenhower can easily choose any of the others…some of which lead to very different results. Johnston’s first suggestion is to create a brand new space
Johnston’s first suggestion is to create a brand new, space-centric government agency from scratch. And, since this is a fairly open book, there is no real telling how it will develop. There is no doubt that this brand new institution has the potential to eventually become a civil society, like NASA now, as a responsibility to American taxpayers and interested in peaceful exploration of space.
However, it is Eisenhower's second and fourth choices that allow us to come to the three-way intersection more clearly. Going down a road, yes, it will be NASA. However, taking the other two paths, there are some different alternatives to changing history. Johnston's second suggestion was to hand over the mission to win the space race to AEC, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the fourth option was to hand over the responsibility to the Advanced Research Projects Bureau—a organization known today as DARPA, It is part of the Ministry of Defense. First, if the AEC is given a mission to send Americans into space, it may not have a good ending.
This incident did happen in real life: In 1975, because it was generally believed that the United States Atomic Energy Commission (hereinafter referred to as AEC) was not easily controlled, so in order to control the United States' nuclear interests, various groups were found to be various. Dissolved, replaced it. It was initially manifested as in the mid-1970s, any AEC-controlled space project might have ended at some point. At that time we might need to come up with other solutions for space travel or something further.
In fact, AEC was only established in 1947, so its experience is not very rich. Moreover, it is generally believed that the absence of rigorous health and safety measures is one of the main reasons why the AEC was eventually repealed. Who knows how dangerous an AEC-led space agency will end up being? Really, even at the earliest, the study of the two goals of nuclear energy and human moon landing can be said to be irrelevant. Moreover, it seems that AEC attaches more importance to researching nuclear energy rather than astronomy, so this organization is not considered a space agency at all.
Indeed, AEC has world-leading scientists in hand, but space is indeed not their professional field. In fact, S. Paul Johnston himself admits that the only benefit of studying space for AEC is the potential to develop nuclear kinetic energy technology, and if anyone or organization can achieve nuclear kinetic energy advancement, it may be them. Now we are still practicing the plan for nuclear engines. Perhaps if we had the space station led by AEC, we may have developed this technology long ago.
In any case, such technology may still be very dangerous. After all, if a nuclear-powered rocket launch fails, it may lead to nuclear bomb-level damage.Perhaps, it is not a bad thing for former US President Eisenhower to fail to commit to this special path in the end. However, Johnston's fourth hinted that Eisenhower would neglect the "space race" with other countries. In comparison, the AEC may be a safer choice for developing space. This is because in the 1950s, the US Department of Defense strictly controlled space navigation and wanted to militarize the space industry immediately, so that human beings would be destined to be destroyed immediately.
Fortunately, there are many laws now that guarantee that no country will develop military affairs in space. The most famous of them is the Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967, which is still the basis of space legal regulations.
But the treaty was formulated nearly a decade after NASA (NASA), which means NASA hasn't had so much red tape in about a decade. And, in another world controlled by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the Defense Department would have taken a more radical stance, so the Outer Space Treaty may never be completed. .
The worst situation is indeed a very terrible idea for almost everyone living on Earth: when Cold War is at the most stressful time, weapons of mass destruction are placed on tracks, press the button, You can throw down your ammunition at any time. If we had ever owned nuclear weapon in space, it could be a serious disaster. After all, 99% of people cannot enter the nuclear air raid shelter! We will not look up at the stars in surprise as NASA encourages, but we will always look at the sky in fear, not knowing when the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union will break out.
With the additional arms level in space, the arms race will definitely be more intense. This is not to say that ARPA has never done anything to benefit the world, the Internet is one of its highest achievements, because ARPA has played an important role in the development of the Internet. But if we all die in the development of the Internet, even the Internet will become useless.
But if we all died from nuclear war launched from space 60 years ago, even the internet would be just as worthless! But now let's not think about the four space agency alternatives originally listed by S. Paul Johnston, what would have happened if none of these four options had happened? What if for some reason, humans are not interested in entering space? This will also lead to a completely different world.
Because the space race is mainly a common thing between , the United States and the Soviet Union, , if one side does not care about space, it will think that the other side will not be so focused. Given that both sides also benefited from the expertise of German scientists in the Nazi era, the 1950s, in general, might have become the shutdown period for rocket manufacturing, rather than as it proved to be the birthplace of modern rocket science. If neither of these two superpowers were committed to developing science, we would certainly not have as advanced space travel as today. And, as publicly funded science is looking for non-space directions as alternatives, there is likely no civilian space agency on Earth.
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