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Who Works for NASA

NASA’s Headquarters is in Washington, D.C. The agency has nine centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and seven test and research facilities located in several states around the country. More than 17,000 people work for NASA. Many more people work with the agency as government contractors. These people are hired by companies that NASA pays to do work. The combined workforce represents a variety of jobs. Astronauts may be the best-known NASA employees, but they only represent a small number of the total workforce. Many NASA workers are scientists and engineers. But people there hold many other jobs, too, from secretaries to writers to lawyers to teachers

What Has NASA Done

When NASA started, it began a program of human spaceflight. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs helped NASA learn about flying in space and resulted in the first human landing on the Moon in 1969. Currently, NASA has astronauts living and working on the International Space Station.
NASA’s robotic space probes have visited every planet in the solar system and several other celestial bodies. Telescopes have allowed scientists to look at the far reaches of space. Satellites have revealed a wealth of data about Earth, resulting in valuable information such as a better understanding of weather patterns.

NASA has helped develop and test a variety of cutting-edge aircraft. These aircraft include planes that have set new records. Among other benefits, these tests have helped engineers improve air transportation. NASA technology has contributed too many items used in everyday life, from smoke detectors to medical tests

How does NASA work

In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft drifted into the shadow of Saturn's giant planet for 12 hours and looked back at the ecliptic. Saturn's E-ring appears in stunning detail, and the outermost ring is visible above. NASA
The United States had already begun launching satellites shortly before the creation of NASA. On January 1, 1958, the Juno 1 missile was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and rose 200 miles (321 km) into the sky before launching a satellite called Explorer 1 [source: NASA ]. But the Explorer wasn't just entering orbit - the satellite has produced important scientific knowledge as well, by documenting the presence of the Van Allen radiation belt surrounding the Earth [source: Garber and Laune's ].
In the decades that followed, Explorer was followed by many other unmanned missions. NASA has sent several robotic space probes to various places in the solar system . Early probes (Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Pioneer, and Surveyor) were sent to the moon to obtain the information needed for the Apollo Landing on the moon. NASA later returned to the moon with the Clementine (1992) and Lunar Prospector (1998) probes for further exploration.
NASA has sent flights, orbital and landings to explore the inner and outer planets. They include:
Mariner: the flight of Mercury, Venus ، and Mars
Major: Flying from the Moon (early missions), Jupiter (Pioneer 10), Venus (Pioneer Venus missions)
Voyager: flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
Magellan: Venus and Radar Mapping
Viking: the descent of Mars
Galileo: Jupiter is in orbit
Hubble Space Telescope: An orbital observatory that helped scientists look at the early universe and estimate its age more accurately.
Cassini: Saturn spacecraft with Huygens' lander on Saturn's moon, Titan
Deep Space 1: A flying asteroid
Stardust: Cometand Sample Return
Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity: Mars Landers
Orbiting Mars: Mars
Messenger: Mercury's orbit
Dawn: The first probe to orbit an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter [source: JPL ].
WISE / NEOWISE: It scanned the entire celestial sky in infrared light 1.5 times, and captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, from comets to galaxies [source: NASA ]
Juno: An orbiter around Jupiter that revealed the turbulent nature of the largest planet in the solar system [source: NASA ].
Curiosity and Opportunity: Two Rovers Exploring the Surface of Mars [Source: Corinne ].
New Horizons: Color images of the dwarf planet carried Pluto and Charon [Source: NASA ].
Insight: Launched in May 2018, this probe will investigate the dynamics of Martian tectonic activity [Source: NASA ].

These sensors have made many valuable scientific discoveries. Next, we'll take a look at the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo projects.