( in full the National Aeronautics and Space Administration )
the US government organization responsible for research into space and space travel. Its office is in Washington, DC, and the main centres include the John F Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral , Florida , the Lyndon B Johnson Space Center near Houston , Texas , and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. NASA was established in 1958 by President Eisenhower to replace the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
See also Apollo program , Challenger , Skylab , space shuttle .