https://www.cnet.com/news/how-nasa-got-its-start-60-years-ago-sputnik-eisenhower/

The origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration can be traced all the way back to the Wright brothers, but the real story happened over less than a year.  

That very brief period in the 1950s and the birth of an iconic space agency involves an explosive and embarrassing failure, a "second moon," a canine astronaut and a woman you've never heard of.