Why NACA changed name to NASA

[Pawelk198604]

I wonder why NASA was established, do not get me wrong, thanks to NASA man landed on the moon.

I wonder why this institution at all changed its name had to count the total time the existence of two venerable institutions that NASA has already hundredth anniversary.

I wonder if it was just a rebranding ;)

[Kryten]

NACA was only a small part of what became NASA: the former ABMA guys at Marshall were a much larger part of the space side, and they also got parts of the Naval Research Laboratory and ARPA.

[G'th]

^ As Kryten said it was changed because several organizations and laboratories were merged together in an effort to respond to Sputnik. NACA as it existed was mostly an aeronautical research organization, whose primary accomplishment was their involvement with the X-1. As the Space Race began NACA also coordinated most of the efforts different organizations (from private industry to government programs) were making towards space.

Once Sputnik was launched, everybody freaked and as such most space efforts going on in the US at the time were merged under a new civil space program, called NASA.

It was in all the papers: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Advisory_Committee_for_Aeronautics#Transformation_into_NASA[/url]

[fredinno]

[quote name='Pawelk198604']I wonder why NASA was established, do not get me wrong, thanks to NASA man landed on the moon.

I wonder why this institution at all changed its name had to count the total time the existence of two venerable institutions that NASA has already hundredth anniversary.

I wonder if it was just a rebranding ;)[/QUOTE]
It was because space was now involved, methinks.

[Bill Phil]

NACA was specifically an organization for air travel. NASA was more of a successor that was larger. They basically inherited a bunch of stuff from NACA.