MSA Encyclopædia

The Marshall Space Agency was founded in 1950 by Werner von Braun and other members of the US Naval Research Laboratory. Von Braun was a controversial figure in the United States after surrendering to the US Army at the end of WWII. The US Army saw the obvious advantages that von Braun and the other Nazi scientists provided with their experience. As the Army tried to integrate them into their rocket program, but the bad PR became too much of an issue. It was ultimately decided that his experience was not worth the backlash.

At the same time the US Navy had been working on developing their Viking sounding rockets. The development of these rockets was going very poorly. It was decided a change was needed. Not wanting to experience the same criticisms as the US Army, they looked for alternative ideas. Alan Waterman, the newly appointed Director of the National Science Foundation came up with a crazy idea. As a member of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Waterman knew of the facilities and potential offered at Omelek Island in the Marshall Islands.

With a latitude of 9 degrees, launches from Omelek can be the most efficient in territory available to the US. The large Air Force base there provided much of the infrastructure that was needed in order to facilitate the newly formed space program. The agreement with the US and the Marshall Space Agency is an interesting one. The MSA receives no annual funding from the US Government, but there are agreements on contracts paid to the agency.

Uniquely, there are three other competing space agencies operating in the borders of the United States. We do not know the exact agreements with these groups. We do know that AVIARY (Brownsville, TX), KABOOM (Cape Canaveral, FL), and Snowbird Space Agency (Kodiak, AL) are lesser agencies than the MSA.

The first launch at Omelek!