NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA is a government agency in the United States of America, with the primary mission of space exploration. Their primary launch facility is Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Fiction
Generation 1 continuity family
Marvel UK comic continuity
Danny Phillips's father died while testing an experimental rocket for NASA. Missing in Action NASA had a space monitoring facility near Mount St. Hilary, which the Decepticons took over so they could use its radio telescope to communicate with their forces on Cybertron. Jetfire, Prowl and Trailbreaker unsuccessfully tried to stop them. The Gift Like Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, NASA's instruments completely failed to detect the meteor containing the Firebug as it crashed on Earth. Firebug!
Toy bios
NASA developed a sentient metal which they entrusted to the Autobots for safekeeping. It was used to construct Pepsi Convoy. Pepsi Convoy bio
Beast Wars cartoon
NASA launched the Voyager probe containing a Golden Disk, unaware that a secret message had been inscribed onto the disc by Megatron. The Agenda (Part 2)
Panini Armada comic
The Air Defense Mini-Con Team broke into a NASA facility, intending to steal a human spacecraft so they could get off the planet, however the Extra-Terrestrial Response Division was waiting for them. The humans incapacitated the Mini-Con team and spirited them away to Area 54. 'We Are Not Alone!'
Live-action film series
Transformers film
Several decades later, NASA sent the Beagle 2 Rover to Mars. It transmitted for a few minutes before being stepped on by a Decepticon. The footage was classified by Sector Seven. Transformers
Dark of the Moon film
When the Ark crashed on the Moon in 1961, John F. Kennedy tasked NASA with getting men up there. After years of work, the Apollo 11 launched in 1969. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin successfully landed on the Moon and, during a period of communications blackout with NASA, entered the Ark. Over the years, a number of other missions to the site were made, taking photos and retrieving samples. In the early 70s, Soundwave and Laserbeak gained the help of Dylan Gould's father in using creative accounting to shut down any further NASA missions. Dark of the Moon
After the arrival of the second wave of Autobots, NASA ended up looking after the Xantium as well as the three Wreckers. When the Ark crash came to light, Optimus Prime met with Buzz Aldrin and a couple of NASA's founding associates to discuss the crash. Some time later, when the Autobots were ordered to vacate Earth, they attached the Xantium to the Discovery and launched it, only for the ship to be destroyed by Starscream. Dark of the Moon
The Last Knight film
An unnamed NASA scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory operating the Deep Space Network, detected a planet size object entering the solar system.
The same scientist flew to Washington, DC to NASA's headquarters to brief the President's staff about the object. The scientist stated that the object was traveling at 1/10 light speed and would approach the Earth in three days.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Deep Space Network continued to track the incoming planet and confirmed that the planet was the exoplanet Cybertron and that the planet would arrive in two days.
NASA used the Hubble Space Telescope to take images of the Cybertron which were later shown on a TV screen in the British Prime Minister although they were as credited coming from ESA which jointly operated the telescope with NASA.
While Cybertron came closer to the Earth, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and ESA gave a briefing about the planet's approach while it scraped the surface of the Moon.
While Cybertron scrapped the Moon, the Lunar Module Descent Stage and an American flag from NASA's Apollo 11 mission were destroyed by the the planet's outer chunks.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory later assisted the United States military and the Autobots in trying to find a way to shut down Cybertron's ignition chamber.
The same NASA scientist who discovered Cybertron's approach thinks that the U.S military's plan to break into the ignition chamber and steal the staff is a bad idea and says that he would rather rely on "physics rather than fair-tales" to save the planet.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory determines that Cybertron is using Earth's core, aka Unicron, to rebuild itself. The same NASA scientist from before informs the Pentagon that if the Earth's core continues to cool, which it was already doing, the Earth's magnetic field would be gone and that the Earth would be exposed to high levels of cosmic radiation. This would lead to the death of everyone on the Earth.
When the U.S military's plan fails, NASA's Jet Propulsion Labratory comes with the plan to use tactical nukes to cause a fragment of Cybertron to swing down and hit the ignition chamber and save the Earth. The Pentagon agrees and requests tactical nuke authority.
The United States Air Force strikes one of the chunks with F-35 Lighting II and F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets and knocks the ignition chamber but the ignition chamber still continues to operate much to NASA's disappointment.
Later on, Viviane finally pulls the staff free, shutting down the Ignition Chamber just before it crashes to the ground. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory cheers while the same scientist is relieved.
Prime cartoon
William Fowler used his connections with NASA to obtain a state-of-the-art spacesuit for Jack Darby to use on a mission to Cybertron. Orion Pax, Part 2
Notes
- A space agency appears in the 2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon episode "Attack from Outer Space", which might be NASA but is never explicitly identified as such.
- In the real-world continuity family, Beagle 2 was a European Space Agency mission and not a NASA one.
- NASA runs an annual Optimus Prime Spinoff Award which America's school children can enter to showcase their inventions. Peter Cullen presents the award, just to make it that much more awesome.
External links
- NASA at Wikipedia
- NASA's official site
