Giant Leap in Communications since the First Moonwalk

The death of Neil Armstrong, the first man who stepped on to the moon can be termed as an end of an era for the various international space agencies competing to be ahead of each other in space technology.

It all started with a space race in mid-to-late 20th century between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) for supremacy in space exploration. The Space Race involved continuous efforts to launch satellites, sub-orbital and orbital human spaceflight around the Earth, and to the Moon.

Everyone talked about the supremacy of NASA for launching the first successful crewed flight of landing on the Moon but not much has been published about the kind of technology which was used during that time to carry such a historic mission.

An estimated 530 mn people watched Armstrong's televised image and heard his voice describe the event as he took, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" approximately 250,000 miles (400,000 km) away from Cape Kennedy on July 20, 1969.

This audio video communication was possible only when Motorola transceiver sent radio signals to 3 Earth based receiving stations where Motorola FM demodulator converted them for radio and television broadcast.

And when the Apollo astronauts set foot on the moon, the sound of their voices and their TV pictures was beamed back to Earth through yet another Motorola communications unit called an S-band 'transceiver' installed in the Lunar Module, the space vehicle that takes astronauts down to the lunar surface.

The technology used in the Apollo manned lunar program cannot be compared by the current technology standards as many scientist termed it as very basic. But while they were no more powerful than a pocket calculator, these ingenious computer systems were able to guide astronauts across 356,000 km of space from the Earth to the Moon and return them safely.

The other technology used at lunar mission was a command module computer designed at MIT and built by Raytheon, which paved the way to 'fly by wire' aircraft. The so-called Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) used a real-time operating system, which enabled astronauts to enter simple commands by typing in pairs of nouns and verbs, to control the spacecraft.

It was more basic than the electronics in modern toasters that have computer controlled stop/start/defrost buttons. It had approximately 64 kilo byte of memory and operated at 0.043MHz.

While the astronauts would probably have preferred to fly the spacecraft manually, only the AGC could provide the accuracy in navigation and control required to send them to the Moon and return them safely home again, independent of any Earth-based navigation system.

The Goddard Space Flight Center used IBM System/360 Model 75s for communications across NASA and the spacecraft. IBM Huntsville designed and programmed the Saturn rocket instrument unit, while the Saturn launch computer at the Kennedy Space Center was operated by IBM.

An IBM System/360 Model 75 was used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to calculate lift-off data required to launch the Lunar Module off the Moon's surface and enable it to rendezvous with Command Module pilot Michael Collins for the flight back to Earth.

According to Egils Milbergs ,director, Economic Development Commission for Washington State, “Technology can be the establishing base for innovation, but people are the ones that drive it forward.