Pre-NASA administrators. Final meeting of NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, on 21 August 1958. This US organisation, founded in 1915, was formally ended on 1 October 1958 and absorbed by the newly formed NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. At left is T. Keith Glennan (1905-1995), who had been sworn in as the first NASA administrator on 19 August 1958. At centre is Preston R. Bassett (1892-1992), member of the NACA Committee on Aerodynamics. At right is Charles J. McCarthy (1894-1988), Chairman of the Board of Chance Vought Aircraft, Inc. NASA was formed as a responses to the launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik I satellite in October 1957.