Moon Machines: The Navigation Computer

Currently, we live in a world where we use different tools that were made for people and teams with enormous skills in their area. One of the most important aeronautic and computational systems invention was the navigation system. 

It is inimaginable to try to dimension how prepared are the people that made the navigation system that the NASA used to launch a rocket to the moon. When the principal organization of aeronautic of USA chose the MIT as first team with the intention to send a little crew to our most important satellite, they knew they were putting their trust in people capacitated to complete this task in time and form. 

I remember that when I was watching the video, it seemed interesting how the team thought about all these components and how they could make the navigation system with the simple fact of designing a prototype and then implementing it. I think they had to be really intelligent and trained people in order to create a system never constructed before.  Furthermore, they had to be careful with everything that they did because the NASA was investing a huge amount of money in this project. 

In the first minute of the video, they show us how they had tried to send another rocket to space without any success. However, they not only lose money but they also lost people in those projects. Therefore, it was important that everything was carefully made: calculation, figures, estimates, tools, measures, times and so on. The purpose of all this was to avoid losing more human lives and money. 

Hence, each component of the navigation systems was manufactured in detail to avoid some catastrophic accidents as in the past. To create the electro-mechanic component of the navigation systems, the team had to test that it worked with minimum errors. When they made the computer that went to control the systems they also had to invest a lot of time generating it. Besides, a high amount of people contributed to finish it in the required time. 

That is the way how the NASA and the MIT created one of the most important components to send a rocket to the moon. They made it clear that a good design and an excellent process of creation could generate interesting tools that could help us in a near future.

 

Science Channel. (2009). Moon Machines: The Navigation Computer. Recovered from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ1O0XR_cA0 

Gif taken from Google.