Fifty years of DARPA: A surprising history

(NewScientist) - In 1957, the Soviet Union caught the US completely off-guard. Its military launched Sputnik – the world's first artificial satellite – heralding the dawn of the space age.
President Eisenhower's response was to create the Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA) with a clear mission: "prevent technological surprise". Eisenhower hoped that the agency would produce revolutionary technologies and thus guarantee that never again would the US military be caught with its technological trousers down. Continued

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