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Article: Legislative Environment
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- Space Sciences
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Legislative Environment
When Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, it did not consider the need to commercialize space. At the time, the United States was fighting the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The purpose of the new space agency was to bring together America's many space programs to compete with the Soviet Union, which had launched the first satellite into orbit.
NASA's missions, as defined by Congress, were to expand human knowledge of Earth and space, to preserve America's role as a leader in "aeronautical and space science and technology," and to cooperate with other nations in the pursuit of these goals. Not until 1984 did ...