1.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
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Ames Research Center
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Ames Research Center, also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in Californias Silicon Valley. It was founded as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics laboratory and that agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration on October 1,1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist, at last estimate NASA Ames has over US$3.0 billion in capital equipment,2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget. Ames was founded to conduct research on the aerodynamics of propeller-driven aircraft, however, its role has expanded to encompass spaceflight. Ames plays a role in many NASA missions, Ames also develops tools for a safer, more efficient national airspace. The centers current director is Eugene Tu, the site is mission center for several key current missions and a major contributor to the new exploration focus as a participant in the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Although Ames is a NASA Research Center, and not a center, it has nevertheless been closely involved in a number of astronomy. The Pioneer programs eight successful missions from 1965 to 1978 were managed by Charles Hall at Ames. By 1972, it supported the bold flyby missions to Jupiter and Saturn with Pioneer 10 and those two missions were trail blazers for the planners of the more complex Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions, launched five years later. In 1978, the end of the program brought about a return to the solar system, with the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and Multiprobe. Lunar Prospector was the mission selected by NASA for full development. Based on Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer data, mission scientists have determined that there is indeed water ice in the craters of the Moon. The 11-pound GeneSat-1, carrying bacteria inside a laboratory, was launched on December 16,2006. The very small NASA satellite has proven that scientists can quickly design, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission to look for water on the moon was a secondary payload spacecraft. LCROSS began its trip to the moon on the rocket as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. It launched in April 2009 on an Atlas V rocket from Kennedy Space Center, the Kepler mission is NASAs first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets. The Kepler mission will monitor the brightness of stars to find planets that pass in front of them during the planets orbits, during such passes or transits, the planets will slightly decrease the stars brightness. Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy is a joint venture of the U. S, the aircraft is supplied by the U. S. and the infrared telescope by Germany
3.
Mae Jemison
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Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician and NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on September 12,1992. After medical school and a general practice, Jemison served in the Peace Corps from 1985 until 1987. She resigned from NASA in 1993 to found a company researching the application of technology to daily life and she has appeared on television several times, including as an actress in an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation. She is a dancer and holds nine honorary doctorates in science, engineering, letters, and she is the current principal of the 100 Year Starship organization. Mae Carol Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, on October 17,1956 and her father was a maintenance supervisor for a charity organization, and her mother worked most of her career as an elementary school teacher of English and math at the Beethoven School in Chicago. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, when Jemison was three years old, to advantage of the better educational and employment opportunities there. Jemison says that as a girl growing up in Chicago she always assumed she would get into space. I thought, by now, wed be going into space like you were going to work and she said it was easier to apply to be a shuttle astronaut, rather than waiting around in a cornfield, waiting for ET to pick me up or something. In her childhood, Jemison learned to make connections to science by studying nature, once when a splinter infected her thumb as a little girl, Jemisons mother turned it into a learning experience. She ended up doing a project about pus. Jemisons parents were supportive of her interest in science, while her teachers were not. In kindergarten, my teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and she said, Dont you mean a nurse. Now, theres nothing wrong with being a nurse, but thats not what I wanted to be, in an interview with Makers, she further explains how her sheer interest in science was not accepted. Growing up. I was just like every other kid, I loved space, stars and dinosaurs. I always knew I wanted to explore, at the time of the Apollo airing, everybody was thrilled about space, but I remember being irritated that there were no women astronauts. People tried to explain that to me, and I did not buy it, Jemison says she was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. to her Kings dream was not an elusive fantasy but a call to action. Too often people paint him like Santa -- smiley and inoffensive, but when I think of Martin Luther King, I think of attitude, audacity, and bravery
4.
Orlando, Florida
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Orlando is a city in the U. S. state of Florida and the county seat of Orange County. Located in Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 4,000,002, according to U. S. As of 2015, Orlando had an estimated population of 270,934, making it the 73rd-largest city in the United States, the fourth-largest city in Florida. The City of Orlando is nicknamed The City Beautiful, and its symbol is the fountain at Lake Eola, Orlando is also known as The Theme Park Capital of the World and in 2014 its tourist attractions and events drew more than 62 million visitors. The Orlando International Airport is the thirteenth-busiest airport in the United States, with the exception of Walt Disney World, most major attractions are located along International Drive. The city is one of the busiest American cities for conferences and conventions. Orlando is home to the University of Central Florida, which is the largest university campus in the United States in terms of enrollment as of 2015, in 2010, Orlando was listed as a Gamma− level of world-city in the World Cities Study Groups inventory. Orlando ranks as the fourth-most popular American city based on where people want to live according to a 2009 Pew Research Center study. Fort Gatlin, as the Orlando area was known, was established at what is now just south of the city limits by the 4th U. S. Artillery under the command of Ltc, alexander C. W. Fanning on November 9,1838 during the construction of a series of fortified encampments across Florida during the Second Seminole War. The fort and surrounding area were named for Dr. John S. Gatlin, king Phillip and Coacoochee frequented this area and the tree was alleged to be the place where the previous 1835 ambush that had killed over 100 soldiers had been planned. When the U. S. military abandoned the fort in 1839 the surrounding community was built up by settlers, prior to being known by its current name, Orlando was once known as Jernigan. Aarron Jernigan became Orange Countys first State Representative in 1845 but his pleas for military protection went unanswered. Fort Gatlin was briefly reoccupied by the military for a few weeks during October and November 1849, a historical marker indicates that by 1850 the Jernigan homestead served as the nucleus of a village named Jernigan. One of the countys first records, a grand jurys report, mentions a stockade where it states homesteaders were driven from their homes, Aaron Jernigan led a local volunteer militia during 1852. Jernigan appears on an 1855 map of Florida and by 1856 the area had become the county seat of Orange County and it is known for certain that the area was renamed Orlando in 1857. The move is believed to be sparked, in part, by Aaron Jernigans fall from grace after he was relieved of his command by military officials in 1856. His behavior was so notorious that Secretary of War Jefferson Davis wrote, in 1859, Jernigan and his sons were accused of committing a murder at the towns post office
5.
Houston
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Houston is the most populous city in the state of Texas and the fourth-most populous city in the United States. With a census-estimated 2014 population of 2.239 million within an area of 667 square miles, it also is the largest city in the southern United States and the seat of Harris County. Located in Southeast Texas near the Gulf of Mexico, it is the city of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land. Houston was founded on August 28,1836, near the banks of Buffalo Bayou and incorporated as a city on June 5,1837. The city was named after former General Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had commanded, the burgeoning port and railroad industry, combined with oil discovery in 1901, has induced continual surges in the citys population. Houstons economy has an industrial base in energy, manufacturing, aeronautics. Leading in health care sectors and building equipment, Houston has more Fortune 500 headquarters within its city limits than any city except for New York City. The Port of Houston ranks first in the United States in international waterborne tonnage handled, the city has a population from various ethnic and religious backgrounds and a large and growing international community. Houston is the most diverse city in Texas and has described as the most diverse in the United States. It is home to cultural institutions and exhibits, which attract more than 7 million visitors a year to the Museum District. Houston has a visual and performing arts scene in the Theater District. In August 1836, two real estate entrepreneurs from New York, Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen, purchased 6,642 acres of land along Buffalo Bayou with the intent of founding a city. The Allen brothers decided to name the city after Sam Houston, the general at the Battle of San Jacinto. The great majority of slaves in Texas came with their owners from the slave states. Sizable numbers, however, came through the slave trade. New Orleans was the center of trade in the Deep South. Thousands of enslaved African Americans lived near the city before the Civil War, many of them near the city worked on sugar and cotton plantations, while most of those in the city limits had domestic and artisan jobs. Houston was granted incorporation on June 5,1837, with James S. Holman becoming its first mayor, in the same year, Houston became the county seat of Harrisburg County and the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas
6.
Effect of spaceflight on the human body
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Humans venturing into the environment of space can have negative effects on the body. Significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness include muscle atrophy and deterioration of the skeleton, other significant effects include a slowing of cardiovascular system functions, decreased production of red blood cells, balance disorders, eyesight disorders and a weakening of the immune system. Additional symptoms include fluid redistribution, loss of mass, nasal congestion, sleep disturbance. The engineering problems associated with leaving Earth and developing space propulsion systems have been examined for over a century, in recent years there has been an increase in research on the issue of how humans can survive and work in space for extended and possibly indefinite periods of time. This question requires input from the physical and biological sciences and has now become the greatest challenge facing human space exploration, a fundamental step in overcoming this challenge is trying to understand the effects and impact of long-term space travel on the human body. In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards related to space exploration. The immediate needs for air and drinkable water are addressed by a life support system. The life support system supplies air, water and food and it must also maintain temperature and pressure within acceptable limits and deal with the bodys waste products. Shielding against harmful external influences such as radiation and micro-meteorites is also necessary, of course, it is not possible to remove all hazards, the most important factor affecting human physical well-being in space is weightlessness, more accurately defined as Micro-g environment. Living in this type of environment impacts the body in three important ways, loss of proprioception, changes in distribution, and deterioration of the musculoskeletal system. Space medicine is a medical practice that studies the health of astronauts living in outer space. Space medicine also seeks to develop preventative and palliative measures to ease the suffering caused by living in an environment to which humans are not well adapted. Human physiology is adapted to living within the atmosphere of Earth, the minimum concentration, or partial pressure, of oxygen that can be tolerated is 16 kPa. Below this, the astronaut is at risk of becoming unconscious, in the vacuum of space, gas exchange in the lungs continues as normal but results in the removal of all gases, including oxygen, from the bloodstream. After 9 to 12 seconds, the blood reaches the brain. Death would gradually follow after two minutes of exposure—though the absolute limits are uncertain, humans and other animals exposed to vacuum lose consciousness after a few seconds and die of hypoxia within minutes. Blood and other body fluids do boil when their pressure drops below 6.3 kPa, the steam may bloat the body to twice its normal size and slow circulation, but tissues are elastic and porous enough to prevent rupture. Ebullism is slowed by the containment of blood vessels, so some blood remains liquid
