History
Chartered in 1958 by the Secretary of Defense, DDMS was originally formed with the express purpose of providing much needed DoD support to the U.S. initial manned space flight effort ... putting people into space and returning them safely to Earth. Since those early days, the support office has continued to be the focal point for all DoD contingency support to Project Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Apollo/Soyuz Test Project and Space Shuttle. This support included astronaut and space capsule recovery, worldwide communications, tracking and data relay, public affairs, and medical support.
Read more about this topic: Department Of Defense Manned Space Flight Support Office
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)