ARPA (later, DARPA) - The (Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency
"...to provide within the Department of Defense an agency for the direction and performance of certain advanced research and development projects." - Original DARPA Directive
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"DARPA’s original mission, established in 1958, was to prevent technological surprise like the launch of Sputnik, which signaled that the Soviets had beaten the U.S. into space. |
"[The Soviet Union] was very much behind in computers. This was related to the fact that the Russians could build very large rockets to launch their satellites and so had no urgent need to develop advanced computers to control the launches; their rockets had plenty of boost capability. On the other hand, since the United States had not developed as powerful rockets, they had to carefully control the launches with computers, and so focused on advancing computer technology."
- Leonard Kleinrock, 3/13/13