Build Stuff'15 Lithuania

Looking back through history, we often view NASA’s early mission in terms of “getting to the Moon”, discussing how this or that program served the purpose of answering Kennedy’s challenge. This is wrong-headed. In this talk I will discuss aeronautics research beginning with the Writght Brothers and ending with the first Shuttle launch in 1981. We’ll see how NASA is an organization whose primary mission is basic research and development in aeronautics for the benefit of the public at large and space exploration. We’ll see how the Lunar Program was a focusing of research to a practical, political aim which built off decades of basic research and necessarily side-lined other programs. It’s my aim to convince you that Moonshot projects cannot be considered independently of their organizations and its history.