Ames Aeronautical Laboratory was established in 1939 as the second laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. It achieved early fame in wind tunnel design and testing, flight testing, and supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamics. In 1958 it became a founding part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and did pioneering research in rotorcraft and vertical flight aircraft, spacecraft engineering, supercomputing and information technology, air traffic control, thermal protection for re-entry vehicles, astrobiology and space life sciences, and Earth and planetary sciences.