As World War II wound to an end, President Franklin Roosevelt asked his top scientific advisor a question: How could the type of research that helped win the war be applied to peacetime? The advisor suggested a new agency to support basic research at colleges and universities. It took a few years to work out the details. But 75 years ago today, President Harry Truman signed the law establishing that agency: the National Science Foundation.

Over the decades, its mission has expanded into many fields, from chemistry and physics to computers and materials science.

The list also includes astronomy. NSF established the first national observatories in 1956 – optical telescopes in Arizona, and radio telescopes in West Virginia. Today, NSF-supported facilities span the globe. They include observatories that no one was even dreaming of when the agency started. They hunt for the ghostly particles known as neutrinos, and listen for gravitational waves from merging black holes and neutron stars.

NSF also is a partner in the Vera Rubin Observatory, which is scheduled to take its first peek at the universe this summer. Its giant telescope will scan a wide slice of the sky every night. It will discover exploding stars, asteroids, and other objects. It will map the Milky Way Galaxy. And it’ll provide new information about dark energy and dark matter – basic research that will teach us much more about the universe.

Script by Damond Benningfield