On October 1st, 1958, NASA was born as a direct response to the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik I satellite in 1957. With its new organization, the United States sought to get ahead in the space race.
The agency’s main objective since its founding has been to study what lies beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. Recently, however, a question has arisen: Why did NASA stop investigating the ocean? Did scientists really decide that studying space was more worthwhile than the depths of our planet?
There are people who believe that at some point in the last century, NASA discovered something terrible and monstrous in the depths of the ocean. A finding that would have led the government agency to dedicate all its efforts to searching for other forms of life and habitable planets… and a way to get humanity out of here.
Although it sounds like an incredible science fiction story, in real life, it is false. NASA did not find any monstrosity in the sea simply because it has never been its object of study.
The organization does help create satellites to monitor weather, oceans, and atmospheric pressure, but it has never been used to investigate the sea or its depths. At least not on Earth. “Satellites have revealed a countless amount of data about Earth, resulting in valuable information for better understanding climate patterns,” NASA reports on its official website.
What Does NASA Do?
In addition to using satellites to study Earth’s climate, NASA develops human space travel programs such as Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, which succeeded in taking the first astronauts to the Moon in 1969.
Currently, there are also astronauts living and working on the International Space Station. NASA probes have also visited all the planets in the solar system and other celestial bodies, and telescopes have allowed us to look beyond our galaxy.
The US agency has collaborated in the development and testing of aircraft. “Among other benefits,” they explain, “these tests have helped engineers improve air transportation, and NASA technology has contributed to many objects used in everyday life, from smoke detectors to medical tests.”