Why was the NASA established?

The National Aeronautics and space Administration (NASA) was founded in the USA in 1958, because the Americans no longer wanted to be overshadowed by the Soviet Union in the field of space technology. The NASA worked feverishly on sending human beings into space as soon as possible. However, the Soviets were ahead of them, and the Soviet pilot and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to circle around the Earth within a span of 108 minutes on April 1961. A month later, the USA gave proof of their technological mettle. Alan B. Shepard, an American naval aviator, took a 15-minute suborbital flight in space. In February 1962, the American astronaut John Glenn succeeded in circling the Earth three times within five hours.