Introduction / Steven J. Dick -- NASA at 50 / Michael D. Griffin -- Inside NASA at 50 / Howard E. McCurdy -- Imagining an aerospace agency in the atomic age / Robert R. MacGregor -- Leading in space : 50 years of NASA administrators / W. Henry Lambright -- Space access : NASA's role in developing core launch-vehicle technologies / J.D. Hunley -- NASA's international relations in space : an historical overview / John Krige -- Fifty years of NASA and the public : what NASA? what publics? / Linda Billings -- NASA aeronautics : a half century of accomplishments / Anthony M. Springer -- Evolution of aeronautics research at NASA / Robert G. Ferguson -- The NACA, NASA, and the supersonic-hypersonic frontier / Richard P. Hallion -- Fifty years of human spaceflight : why is there still a controversy? / John M. Logsdon -- From the secret of Apollo to the lessons of failure : the uses and abuses of systems engineering and project management at NASA / Stephen B. Johnson -- The "Von Braun paradigm" and NASA's long-term planning for human spaceflight / Michael J. Neufeld -- Life sciences and human spaceflight / Maura Phillips Mackowski -- Voyages to Mars / Laurence Bergreen -- The space age and disciplinary change in astronomy / David DeVorkin -- Planetary exploration in the inner solar system / Joseph N. Tatarewicz -- NASA's voyages to the outer solar system / Michael Meltzer -- Deep space navigation, planetary science, and astronomy : a synergetic relationship / Andrew J. Butrica -- NASA's earth science program : the space agency's mission to our home planet / Edward S. Goldstein -- Earth observations from space : achievements, challenges, and realities / James R. Fleming -- Earth science and planetary science : a symbiotic relationship? / Erik Conway -- Exploration, discovery, and culture : NASA's role in history / Steven J. Dick.