HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NASA
Amid triumphs and tragedies, the space agency turns 45

Tomorrow is the official anniversary of when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics adopted a new mandate of space exploration, a big blue meatball of a logo, and became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

And while members of Congress endlessly debate the merits of the agency and whether the space shuttle fleet should be retired and what should come next, it's important to remember the things everyone thinks about when they see that big blue meatball:

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win ..."
- John F. Kennedy, Address at Rice University

For more of Kennedy's address at Rice University, click here.