At a distance of 50.1 light years, the star 51 Pegasi represents an interesting milestone. When viewed today, the light you see from this star left the same year that President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act (July 29, 1958). Two months later, on October 1, 1958, the first NASA administrator, T. Keith Glennan, was hired and the United States was officially in the space business. Student’s can celebrate NASA’s birthday and many achievements this month by using the web resources at the end of this column to research NASA’s space exploration missions from the past 50 years, or planned missions for the future.