The NASA Moon Landings and the Personal Computer
Solid State Electronics Put Men on the Moon -- then Made the PC
Aug 24, 2009
The US recently celebrated the 40 anniversary of the Moon landing. This was an extraordinary accomplishment that was soon forgotten by many Americans. Indeed many people then, and now ask the question? What for? Wasn’t it a waste of money? Besides bringing back moon rocks, what did the Moon missions accomplish?
In a word, the computer industry was created by the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. The PC, the IPhone, and the thousands of gadgets were developed as a result of the moon missions.
In October 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik, a small basketball size satellite the trumped American technology. President Eisenhower was shaken, as were millions of Americans. This was not something they expected. The administration began to look for ways to catch up. It ordered the launching of American satellites, but the technology was not there.
There were dozens of rocket failures, some dramatic like explosions on launch pad or rockets spinning out of control and then blowing up. Those were desperate days. The engineers were trying desperately to create the science of rocketry and it was improvisation all the way.
The first successful American satellite launch occurred in 1958 with Explorer I. This satellite carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, later named the Van Allen belt.
There were other successful American launches, but the Soviet Union, even managed to put an astronaut (called Cosmonaut) into low earth orbit in 1961.
The Space Race to the Moon
In 1962, President Kennedy announced the goal to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and safely return him home to earth. This mission while laudable was harder to achieve than is normally believed. Simply put the technology had not even been invented to make that trip possible.
The Problem of Size and Weight
The most important technology of the time was the vacuum tube. That was what computers were built with. These were large glass covered electronic components that were used to distribute voltages. They made computation possible. They just were not very portable. They were large, heavy and costly. To put a man on the moon, with the limited size that was available for the space cabin for astronauts, the technology had to change. The vacuum tube was not the functional technology that could be used.
Many companies were anxious to do business with NASA. But NASA had specified limits to size, weight and cost to objects that were going to be placed inside the space capsule. Nothing could weigh more than 50 lbs. Nothing could be larger than 2 feet wide. But the objects had to be sturdy, firm, but light, and inexpensive. They had to be easily handled. The solution was the use of the transistor.
Invented in 1947, the transistor was to be the future of electronics. It was small, inexpensive to manufacture in mass quantities, and it could be used in many different applications. In 1962 the electronic solid state industry was just starting to take off. Radios and television components, communication, radar and avionics, and medical equipment were all being transistorized. This made it possible for many companies to win contracts with NASA to develop smaller and lighter space components to put in the rockets and in the very small space capsule.
By the time of the Apollo moon landings in 1969 through 1973, NASA was using many of the electronic components that would find home in the first PC’s. The technology was present, it just needed a home.
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