The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was founded in 1915, twelve years before the first nonstop transatlantic flight. Its mission was to "supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical solution." NACA built the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, and later the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in California and the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Ohio. Its engineers developed the NACA airfoil series, the cowling that reduced drag around radial engines, and the area rule that allowed supersonic aircraft to pass through the sound barrier. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. government realized that aeronautical research was no longer sufficient; the nation needed a space agency. On October 1, 1958, NACA became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Neil Armstrong was a NACA/NASA research pilot at Lewis and then Dryden before he became a spacefarer; John Glenn was a Marine test pilot and Alan Shepard a Navy test pilot—neither had been a NACA research pilot. The NACA legacy is in every aircraft wing, every engine cowling, and every supersonic design that flies today.