Explorer 1 carries us into the space age

On July 29, 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, officially creating NASA. Fifty-five years later, NASA may finally be eligible for those plum senior discounts, but the agency show no signs of slowing down after a very productive first five and a half decades of existence

Arguably though, NASA's first major accomplishment came a few months before the agency was officially formed, when Explorer 1 -- the first American satellite -- was launched from Cape Canaveral. Explorer 1 was designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which would become a part of NASA just a few months after the new space agency was created.