Fourth Grade
Worksheets
What Is NASA?
Would you like to be an explorer? Would you like to help with future missions to other planets and outer space? Then maybe you should work for NASA. NASA is an acronym. An acronym is a word formed from the first letters of other words. N.A.S.A. stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA is in charge of exploring space.
This U.S. agency was started in 1958. At that time, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a space race. Each country wanted to be the first to explore space and to put a man on the moon. The Soviet Union won a victory on September 13, 1959. Its Luna 2 was the first man-made object to land on the moon. NASA won the final victory on July 20, 1969, when the astronauts from Apollo 11 were the first people to walk on the moon.
