NACA to NASA

摘要

About a decade after the Wright brothers' flight, Americans were losing aviation ground to British, French and German aeronautical laboratories. The Europeans were leapfrogging the progress of the United States through a mix of government and private funding, and inspiration provided by the Great War, which erupted in 1914. The Smithsonian Institution's regents recommended in February 1915 that Congress establish a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, based largely on the similarly named British organization.