It was 40 years ago today (nearly)
17 July 2009
They say that if you remember the 60s, you weren’t there. But then there are those events that if you were there, you’ll never forget.
‘Where were you when…?’ is a question that has been recently resurrected in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, and similarly, on this 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we’re asking ‘where were you when you first saw Neil Armstrong do the original moonwalk?’
It has been said that approximately 20% of the world’s population witnessed those first steps on the moon’s surface, although as it was some 14 years before my birth, I wasn’t even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes. But our Ad Manager, Keith Murray, remembers sitting with his father in front of a black and white television so large that it needed it’s own room, peering at images beamed live from the moon. He recalls the time delay, but also the amazement felt at seeing man set foot on the moon.
NASA ensured that images of all aspects of the flight were recorded; futuristic technology for the era. I’ve mentioned before in this column that there is more technology in a modern car than on Apollo 11 (Throwing away our morals), but just think about how much power is in our hands. In modern ubiquitous devices, the archetypal epitome of which is the mobile phone, there is typically internet connectivity, a camera, video recording facilities, and enough megabytes to store the data.
The Apollo programme, specifically the lunar landings, are often cited as the greatest technological achievement in human history, but it goes further than this. A considerable amount of technology that is all around us, and we perhaps take for granted, can be traced back to the space race.
Undoubtedly, the programme spurred numerous advances in many areas of technology peripheral to rocketry and manned spaceflight, but there are also those contributions in the fields of avionics, telecommunications, and computers. Indeed, satellite telecommunications, necessary for the astronauts to contact Houston, have since provided hundreds of services such as improved phone calls, data transmission, and mobile telecommunications. Scientists developed digital cameras in the 1960s to transmit pictures from outer space to the earth using satellite signals. It was Sony that later developed the device into a consumer product. Furthermore, the image-enhancing techniques developed by US scientists in the Apollo moon-landing programme have been used in image processing in medical equipment. Then of course, there are new materials that were developed. The hardwearing, multi-purpose Duct tape, a favourite of the home mechanic and DIYer, has been employed in thousands of applications, but was first put to use on Apollo 13. And how could we overlook the urban legend claiming that Americans spent millions of dollars developing the Space Pen that was able to write in extreme temperature conditions and at high altitude, whilst the Russians used a pencil. Apparently, counter propaganda states that NASA programmes have used pencils, but because of the danger that a broken-off pencil tip poses in zero gravity and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils, a better solution was required.
During the last 40 years, technology has truly made a giant leap, and we can only wonder what the next 40 years will bring. Missions to Mars are in the planning, but how much further can we go, and what technology will benefit us all as a result of the ongoing space race?
What are your thoughts on the subjects mentioned in this comment? Send an email to let me know.
This week’s leader was written by Paul Wolfe, EMTww’s Assistant Editor
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