NASA

## National Aeronautics and Space Administration

### Primary Spaceports

John F. Kennedy Space Center - Cape Canaveral Space Force Station - Vandenberg Space Force Station - Mercury Transit Center Spacehub

### Annual Budget

D¥ 302.4 billion

The **National Aeronautics and Space Administration**, also known as **NASA**, is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, space research, and colonial management. Alongside the United States Space Force, the United States Air Force, the United States Department of Energy, and the United States Department of Defense, NASA comprises the six major federal government organizations charged with conducting intersolar operations.

NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, the Artemis Program, and the Helios Program. The agency is currently responsible for resupply missions to the United States' various colonial efforts throughout the solar system - with support from corporate partners - and maintains all chartered federal colonies, such as the New Jamestown and New Virginia colonies.

## Active Programs

### Orbital Installation Management

NASA, alongside commercial partners and various governmental organizations, operates and manages the two major United States earth-orbit transit centers. These megastructures comprise of:

* The **Mercury Transit Center** is connected to the San Angeles Megacity via the Neil Armstrong Memorial Space Fountain, and serves as an orbital hub of manufacturing, transportation, scientific research, starship construction, satellite manufacturing, and orbital cleanup operations. It is the fifth-largest orbital transit hub in the solar system.
* The **Apollo Transit Center** is connected to the Northeast Megalopolis via the John Glenn Memorial Space Fountain, and serves as an orbital hub of transportation, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, starship construction, research and development, and healthcare. It is the third-largest orbital transit hub in the solar system.
* The **Columbia Memorial Station** is located in close orbit to the Apollo Transit Center, and is operated by the United States Space Force, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Air Force. It serves as a hub of visual and communications surveillance, weapons experimentation, combat starship construction, and as a refueling depot for U.S. combat spacecraft.
* The **Challenger Memorial Station** is located at Earth's second lagrange point, and acts as a deep-space visual and communications site. Challenger Station also conducts astronomical surveys, scientific research, etc. Challenger often operates completely autonomously.
* The **Artemis Transit Center** is a mostly automated station in geostationary orbit of the Moon, which previously operated as the primary transit hub for American spacecraft headed beyond Earth's gravitational field. In modern times, Artemis mostly serves as a refueling station for corporate or foreign vessels, and as a communications center for American assets on the lunar surface.

### Colonial Management

NASA is expected to act as the primary regulatory and managerial force behind federally-chartered intersolar colonies, of which the United States operates several.

* The **New Jamestown Colony**, located within Shoemaker Crater near the South Pole of the Moon. Roughly 2,800 kilometers cubed in volume, the crater is partially filled with structures built from materials produced locally, and supports a permanent residency of around 80,000 colonists. Most of these residents work in the fields of research and development, chemistry, and robotics. New Jamestown's primary exports are goods produced best under microgravity such as certain pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, etc, fuel synthesized from locally-mined ice, purified drinking water, and raw materials. The colony is chartered as the United States Federal Territory of New Jamestown, and has existed since the Artemis VII mission launched in 2012. It is one of the largest colonies on the Moon in population size, and is the first colony ever established off-Earth.
* The **Fort Isabela Colony**, located within the Amundsen Crater near the South Pole of the Moon. Home to around three-thousand scientists and engineers, Fort Isabela's primary purpose is to serve as the base of operations for the Buzz Aldrin Mass Driver, a structure built from 2057 to 2063 designed to launch payloads into various orbits from the lunar surface. The colony is chartered as the United States Federal Territory of Fort Isabela, and has existed since personnel from New Jamestown first arrived to the site in 2052.
* The **New Virginia Colony**, located atop the Aureum Chaos Plateau near to the Valles Marineris on Mars. Home to around six-thousand permanent residents, the New Virginia Colony exists as the successor to the previous United States Martian colony, New Plymouth. It was founded with the help of corporate partners on Mars in 2136, and exists mostly as a research outpost and fuel resupply depot for American-aligned ships headed beyond Mars.