NDIA History Snapshots: A look back at the history of the association as it celebrates its centennial year.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

In 1914, with dreams of spaceflight in his head, the physicist and inventor Robert Goddard launched his first multi-stage rocket in a field in Massachusetts. No one realized at the time that he was ushering in the space age.

As World War I raged in Europe, Goddard met with Army ordnance officials about a side project he had in mind: a portable recoilless rocket launcher.

For four years, the visionary had been sending his ideas to the Navy and Army, but had gotten nowhere. Prior to the war, most of the research-and-development dollars he had received came from the Smithsonian Institution, not the War Department, which apparently could not see the potential military applications of his work.

The Army eventually did see some possibilities and funded his portable rocket-launcher project, which he successfully demonstrated at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, on Nov. 6, 1918. Five days later the war ended and what would one day be known as a bazooka never reached the field in time to make an impact.

Less than a year later, a group of leading manufacturers and military officers gathered at Aberdeen to talk about how they could leverage the manufacturing base on a large scale to protect America's interests. NDIA's predecessor organization, the Army Ordnance Association, was formed in 1919 to ensure America was never again as ill-prepared for battle as it had been during World War I.

The space domain of warfare provides a stark example of how military procurement and the association has changed and continues to evolve.

When President John F. Kennedy said, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in a May 1961 address to Congress, he also asked for $531 million in the next fiscal year. That public treasure was to be spent on rocket research, satellites and "a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel and facilities." It was a time when only the government launched missiles and rockets.

Association members were heavily involved in the space race, both military and civilian.

The association's magazine reflected this with monthly columns, Saturn rockets on the cover and contributed articles by NASA administrators and the architect of the Saturn V rocket Wernher von Braun.

From 1963 to 1982, expendable launch vehicles were produced only via contracts with NASA and the Defense Department. All ELVs...