Sociological Analysis: The Historical Context of NASA's Founding

This essay examines the founding of NASA as a significant historical event following World War II, primarily attributing its establishment to the Cold War and the ensuing Space Race with the Soviet Union. It references NASA's own publications and other academic sources to support the argument that the competition with the Soviets drove the United States to create a dedicated space agency. The essay discusses the debates and questions surrounding the formation of NASA, including whether to create a new organization or utilize existing ones. It also addresses public opinion at the time, noting the mixed reactions to the space program and its impact on NASA's strategic decisions. The essay further explores the influence of global politics, particularly China's role, and examines rhetorical themes such as leadership, collaboration, and competition in shaping space politics. Ultimately, it concludes that the desire to win the Space Race was the primary catalyst for NASA's creation, while also acknowledging alternative viewpoints that suggest NASA was a pre-planned initiative.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
The aim of the essay is to provide a chosen historical event that happened after the
Second World War that is, after 1945. The primary focus of the essay is to detail the founding of
NASA and the reasons that led to its founding. In doing so, the essay will make use of academic
resources including the primary resource of NASA. The thesis of the essay is to argue that the
founding of NASA was a result of the Cold War with the Soviet Union that led to the Space
Race.
Discussion
NASA, as a mark of commemoration, released an article concerning the reason behind its
founding where it was clearly indicated that the Space Race with the Soviets led to its
foundation. Another significant concern was that in the ongoing cold war in the stated period,
United States found it difficult to have its space agency, which would be a significant response to
Soviets. On the other side, events taking place in Russia gave rise to “age of space” despite the
fact that US already had its own plans for the launch of its satellite. This incident confirms that
United State was required to think of having its own space agency in America
The article also triggers questions in respect to the foundation of a national space agency.
The question of whether a new organization is developed or existing agencies such as National
Science Foundation (NSF) is used, influenced policy makers, military and scientists. On the
other side, the military officials also composed the idea of making organization as part of Army
or Air Force. Likewise, there were a bunch of similar questions about the establishment of first
aeronautical agency in the nation to remain active in the competition with Soviets.

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Furthermore, it has been identified that President Eisenhower came into the contract of
National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, which directly established the foundation
of NASA officials. It has been identified that T Keith Glennan was first known to be the
Administrator of NASA with Hugh Dryden who was the deputy Administrator of the foundation.
There have been a series of debates which claim the fact it would prove to be wrong to name
NASA’s origin to be Sputnik saltation. The major subject of the argument is that NASA was
actually an outcome of National Aeronautics and Space Act, which was already inside the
horizon long before the occurrence of Sputnik.
It has been identified that authors of this article emphasized on some significant points
concerning the probable meaning of Space exploration but authors’ initiatives lack focus on
other things. Within the period, world got into the social revolution of 1960 and space program
started to receive growing attention which seemed to be more apparent from polls such as Gallup
and Harris. One of the significant movements of the age was found to be the growing awareness
regarding spaceflights as well as solar system surrounded by some general masses. However, it is
highly necessary to point the fact that US citizens’ interest in space increased remarkably and it
was burgeoning.
In addition to this, the author of this study has also stated the fact that perspectives of US
citizens towards Sputnik were mixture of both positivity and controversies. Some of the citizens
have probably thought that their nation could achieve something significant, while others have
thought differently and they were probably stuck in though what the country would eventually
achieve spending so much time and money into the initiatives. However, such vibes and
differences in public views caused NASA to think about the public and their interest because
they were quite unsure about public’ attitude.

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It has been identified that Apollo Program of NASA came into the limelight and this was
perfectly the time when US was engaged in a war with Vietnam. On the other side, in order to
know about public views and attitude towards the space program, The Gallup and Harris
developed a suitable questionnaire which effectively revealed the attitude and beliefs of people
towards the initiatives.
The process another breakthrough for the nation because a set of questions were asked
regarding whether the investment on the program was valuable. However, survey revealed the
fact that majority of the respondents have responded in a negative way, while only 54% of the
respondents gave a positive view regarding the establishment of the plan. Likewise, the next
question about the success and achievement of Russian Space initiative and asked whether they
would have benefitted Space Program of US if Russian were not involved in the race. However,
unlike the first question, this question earned a great understanding in which only 29% of the
respondents have gave their views affirmatively. On the basis of this result it can be mentioned
Space Russian gave rise to the establishment of NASA.
Authors’ views are the response or the reply against the policies of space made over the
years. According to the authors of this study, achievement of USSR has strongly influenced
Space program during the period when Eisenhower’ administration was on. Besides this, authors
claim that the major purpose of the establishment was to represent nation’s scientific
achievement.
Besides this significant fact, several other areas were found which are worth analysing
here. For example, it has been identified that private sector played a great role in the field of
space exploration. Paradoxically, the emphasis which is being positioned on human mission to

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planets of mars. Nonetheless, the initiative was further influenced by global politics on studies
related space and space activities. It is worth mentioning that when it comes to global political
influence China played the most dominating and influential role. Authors of the article have also
identified that five significant rhetorical themes and the major purpose of it was about the
understanding the whole narration associated with the space politics in United States. So, this
might include leadership, a state of collaboration, prestige, level of competition as well as
existence of a brand new paradigm. It can be mentioned that authors to particularly understand as
well as analyse several primary documents in respect to space politics as well as space
exploration in United State of America form such themes. Eventually, as the authors had to
conclude in a comprehensive way with respect to these historical narrative researches, they gave
the implication that space exploration is something, which was able to develop discourses. The
discourses were regarding the bipolar world, which engages United State and Soviet Union,
while incorporating several international as well as national players both in private and public
realms at the given period.
The authors Lambright and Schaefer (2004) strongly argued that transformation of
technology has been observed to be playing an influential role towards the direction and result of
large level technical projects that are performed by International Space Station as well as NASA.
Due to the advancement of technology, these projects have received very large and significant
dimensions when they are compared to others. This particular study has been referred as
exploratory piece in which the major part of the findings and analysis were taken from the
secondary sources of information. The article helps to understand the fact that International
Space Station is particularly used by an instrument, which the authors claim a set of complexities
involved in the process.

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Authors sought to find out a number of seminal works, which were performed to analyze the
correspondence between public opinions, and foreign policy to derive argumentatively those
public opinions in USA is in favour of space study and exploration stated Steinberg (2011).
Conclusion
To conclude, it could be reiterated that the desire to win the Space Race and establish
dominance was the prime reason behind the founding of NASA. The paper researched one
primary and four secondary sources to reveal that the political leaders and the army wanted to
beat the Soviets and hence, came up with the idea to establish their own space agency. However,
arguments against this view were also provided stating that NASA was found as a preplanned
strategy by the researchers and scientists. The surveys however revealed otherwise as most
citizens of the country responded affirmatively when asked whether America would invest so
much in space explorations if Russia were not involved.

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References:
Bainbridge, William Sims. "The meaning and value of spaceflight." The Meaning and Value of
Spaceflight, by WS Bainbridge. ISBN 978-3-319-07877-9. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2015
Holland, Dora, and Jack O. Burns. "The American space exploration narrative from the Cold
War through the Obama Administration." Space Policy (2018)
Lambright, W. Henry, and Agnes Gereben Schaefer. "The political context of technology
transfer: NASA and the international space station." Comparative Technology Transfer and
Society 2, no. 1 (2004): 1-24.
Nasa.gov. 2019. "NASA - The Birth Of NASA". Nasa.Gov.
https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/whyweexplore/Why_We_29.html
Steinberg, Alan. "Space policy responsiveness: The relationship between public opinion and
NASA funding." Space Policy 27, no. 4 (2011): 240-246.