The NDEA was influenced by the Soviet launch of the satellite Sputnik on October 4, 1957. U.S. citizens feared that education in the USSR was superior to that in the United States, and Congress reacted by adding the act to bring U.S. schools up to speed.t was one of a suite of science initiatives inaugurated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 motivated to increase the technological sophistication and power of the United States alongside, for instance DARPA and NASA.