NASA technology has changed history and mankind for the better like Columbus and Magellan did
Stephen Pate – with story from Computerworld
Some people are down on the space program and NASA. It is a waste of money when children are starving in Africa critics say.
The starvation in Africa has gotten worse since the West started pumping billions in aid. The selfish desire for wealth and power has blinded both western and third world rulers to the true needs of people.
Featured image – The LEM orbits the moon and sees an earthrise – unimaginable without sophisticated technology (NASA photo)
However, our chances of changing human nature are not good. With technology we have been able to provide everyone with a chance at democracy and a decent lifestyle.
Would we know about Iran’s protests without thirty years of cell phone development and the Internet? I think not. The ComputerWorld article is a good review, beyond Tang fruit drink. Without the Space Program it is highly unlikely you would be able to read this or any other free media on the Internet.
In the meantime, the Internet allows us to identify and expose tyrants with the hope that all mankind will enjoy the sustenance and happiness we all deserve.
Apollo lunar program made a staggering contribution to high tech development
Computerworld – Forty years after astronauts on NASA’s Apollo 11 spacecraft first landed on the moon, experts say the historic event altered the course of space exploration as well man’s view of itself in the universe.
The Apollo missions also had another major affect on the world — rapidly accelerating the pace of technology development. The work of NASA engineers at the time caused a dramatic shift in electronics and computing systems.
Without the research and development that went into those space missions, top companies like Intel Corp. may not have been founded, and the population likely wouldn’t be spending a big chunk of work and free time using laptops and smartphones to post information on Facebook or Twitter.
“During the mid- to late-1960s, when Apollo was being designed and built, there was significant advancement,” said Scott Hubbard, who worked at NASA for 20 years. “Power consumption. Mass. Volume. Data rate. All the things that were important to making space flight feasible led to major changes in technology.”
It’s fairly well-known that technology developed by NASA scientists routinely makes its way into products developed in the robotics, computer hardware and software, nanotechnology, aeronautics, transportation and health care industries- think micro-electromechanical systems, supercomputers and microcomputers, software and microprocessors – were also created using technology developed by NASA over the past half century.
Hubbard noted that overall, $7 or $8 in goods and services are still produced for every $1 that the government invests in NASA.
But the string of Apollo missions alone — which ran from the ill-fated, never-flown Apollo 1 mission in 1967 to Apollo 17, the last to land men on the moon, in 1972 – had a critical, and often overlooked impact on technology at a key time in the computer industry.
“There were remarkable discoveries in civil, electrical, aeronautical and engineering science, as well as rocketry and the development of core technologies that really pushed technology into the industry it is today,” Daniel Lockney, the editor of Spinoff said. “It was perhaps one of the greatest engineering and scientific feats of all time. It was huge. The engineering required to leave Earth and move to another heavenly body required the development of new technologies that before hadn’t even been thought of. It has yet to be rivaled.”
Lockney cited several technologies that can be directly linked engineering work done for the Apollo missions.
Software designed to manage a complex series of systems onboard the capsules is an ancestor to the software that today is used in retail credit card swipe devices, he said. And race car drivers and firefighters today use liquid-cooled garments based on on the devices created for Apollo astronauts to wear under their spacesuits. And the freeze-dried foods developed for Apollo astronauts to eat in space are used today in military field rations, known as MREs, and as part of survival gear.
And those technologies are just a drop in the bucket to importance of the development of the integrated circuit, and the emergence of Silicon Valley, which were very closely linked to the Apollo program.
The development of that integrated circuit, the forbearer to the microchip, basically is a miniaturized electronic circuit that did away with the manual assembly of separate transistors and capacitors. Revolutionizing electronics, integrated circuits are used in nearly all electronic equipment today.
While Robert Noyce, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and then Intel Corp. is credited with co-founding the microchip, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments demonstrated the first working integrated circuit that was built for the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA.
NASA, according to Lockney, set the parameters of what it needed out of the technology and then Kilby designed it. Kilby later won the Nobel Prize in Physics for for creating the technology.
“The co-investment between defense and civilian space was very real and hugely important,” said Hubbard.
“With Apollo, they needed to cut down on weight and power consumption… That was one of the driving requirements that led to the development of the integrated circuit, where you put all the components on a chip rather than having a board stuffed with individual transistors and other circuit components.”
“There was a major shift in electronics and computing and at least half credit goes to Apollo,” said Hubbard. “Without it, you wouldn’t have a laptop. You’d still have things like the Univac.”
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