Samuel Pierpont Langley
In 1898–99, the War Department accepted the report of an aeronautically-minded investigating committee that included Alexander Graham Bell and invested $50,000 for the rights to a heavier-than-air flying machine being developed by Samuel Pierpont Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Although Langley's "Aerodrome" failed embarrassingly, the Army later resumed its interest in aviation as a result of the success of the Wright Brothers and entered into protracted negotiations for an airplane.