What is important here is the distance between the sponsoring company and the SPE. In the absence of adequate distance between the sponsor and the new entity, the latter will not be an SPE but only a subsidiary company. A good SPE should be able to stand on its feet, independent of the sponsoring company.
President Eisenhower authorizes creation of NASA. On this day in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an act that creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He called the signing an [sic] historic step, further equipping the United States for leadership in the space age.
Credit: Apollo 11/NASA. Fifty years ago today (May 25), President John F. Kennedy presented NASA and the nation with a historic challenge: To put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s. Kennedy's dramatic 1961 speech jump-started NASA's Apollo program, a full-bore race to the moon that succeeded when Neil Armstrong's boot clomped down into the lunar dirt on July 20, 1969.