Before NASA 1912-1958NACA – According to Robert G. Ferguson

“The wartime NACA was indeed much larger, going from 500 employees in 1939 to 6,077 in 1945, but it retained the same structure that had characterised the organisation since World War I.

‘By the war’s end, the discovery of new knowledge and leading-edge hardware fundamentally changed the situation. Military aviation proponents gained a new service branch, the Air Force, and a Navy with aircraft carriers. The aircraft industry found itself on a new political and financial footing. Commercial aviation, likewise, was growing and profitable.

‘The rapid ascension of the technology and its military and commercial acceptance generally augured well for the NACA, but success gave rise to additional actors. Not only did industry greatly expand its laboratory infrastructure, but the U.S. Air Force had also begun to create its own in-house and subcontracted research and development capabilities.

‘The NACA was no longer the curious and atypical federal research program of the prewar years. The rise of the Cold War made scientific discovery and technological innovation federal mandates.

‘The NACA blossomed into three laboratories. The oldest laboratory was the Langley Laboratory near Hampton, Virginia. At its height in 1952, Langley employed 3,557 people and, from 1920 to 1958, had constructed some 30 wind tunnels of which about half were still operational in the late 1950s. The second laboratory to open was Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, next to Sunnyvale, California. The third laboratory was the Lewis Engine Lab, which opened in 1942 on 200 acres outside Cleveland, Ohio.

‘The NACA had the most advanced wind tunnels and some of the brightest aeronautical researchers, although it was now but one of numerous knowledge producers contributing to the advancement of aviation, military and commercial.

‘From 1945 to 1957, the dominant aeronautical themes revolved around speed and altitude. Jet engines and rockets were enabling technologies in this regard, but the research direction was also contributing to the Cold War and the spread of atomic weapons. Technically, this direction called for a whole new class of research facilities and methodologies.

‘Researchers at the Langley Laboratory eventually discovered how to design wind tunnels for the transonic region. The move into experimental planes, the first and most famous being the Bell X-1, established a new and long-lasting community of flight-test-oriented researchers. A new community of engineers, pilots and technicians turned flight testing into a creative activity, a starting point for new and fruitful investigations.

‘Sputnik’s October 1957 launch and orbit upended the NACA. A year later, in the NACA’s place, the country created a civilian space and aeronautics agency, NASA. Most aeronautics programs initially continued to operate as they had before the change to NASA, but these were now a minor portion of a much larger and qualitatively different enterprise.”