Race to the moon July 20, 1969: The Eagle has landed
Katherine Loughlin Summer 2016 Essay 2 - Place IXDS 5403 - Media History and Theory Professor David Edwin Meyers MA Interactive Design Lindsey Wilson College
Race to the Moon The date is July 16, 1969 and all around the world, people are watching the launch of Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission. “Thirty seconds and counting. Astronauts report it feels good. T- 25 seconds. Twenty seconds and counting. T- 15 seconds, guidance is internal. 12, 11, 10, 9 ... ignition sequence start ... 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 ... All engines running. Liftoff! We have a liftoff ... 32 minutes past the hour, liftoff on Apollo 11. Tower clear.” Four days later, on July 20, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin successfully landed on the moon's surface as hundreds of millions across the globe watched it happen. On July 24, all three astronauts, including Michael Collins safely splashed down in the Command Module Columbia in the Pacific Ocean. The incredible journey to the moon was significant on different levels. Politically, it put us ahead of the Soviet Union by accomplishing this event before them. Earlier in the decade, on April 12, 1961, a Soviet officer named Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into orbit. On May 5th astronaut Alan Shephard had a 15 minute suborbital flight. At this time in history, the Soviets were thought to be more advanced than the U.S. with space travel. Given the political nature of the 1960’s with the Cold War this was an uncomfortable position for our political leaders. The Apollo program also propelled the semiconductor industry by creating a huge demand for the integrated circuit (microchip).
July 16, 1969 - Launch of Apollo 11 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
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The modern microchips that we have in our consumer electronics like televisions, computers, microwaves, laptops, cameras and cell phones are descended from the integrated circuits that were used in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) in the 1960’s.
Armstrong and Aldrin raise the U.S. flag on the moon surface.
Armstrong stepping down on the moon from the Lunar Module “that’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
President Nixon talking to the astronauts on the moon. 3
A Step Back in Time Let’s start the journey back in time to July 29, 1958, when President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which instituted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA was officially opened on October 1, 1958 and immediately began studying the problem of manned space flight, and the rocket launchers that would be needed to accomplish the goal of a manned lunar mission. After the Soviet’s successful manned orbit mission in April 1961, President Kennedy consulted Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was Chairman of the National Space Council, NASA Administrator James Webb and other officials to determine what area of space exploration the U.S. had a strong chance of achieving before the Soviet Union.
NASA was formed on July 29, 1958. T. Keith Glennan, the new NASA Administrator, and Hugh L. Dryden (left), Deputy Administrator, are sworn in August 19, 1958, as President Eisenhower looks on.
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On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed a nationally televised Joint Session of Congress to address urgent national needs. During this speech “space” was a major agenda item strategically placed near the end of the long address. He talked about the need for space exploration and reaching the moon by the end of the decade and he had to ask for significant funding to accomplish this. “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” JFK
May 25, 1961, President Kennedy Speech Special Message to Congress and the nation.
Version of JFK speech indicating a note --- should we say by 1967 for landing on the moon and returning safely to earth.
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Let’s move ahead to 1963. In January, President Kennedy sent the Fiscal Year 1964 NASA budget request of $5.7 billion to Congress for approval. In the fall of 1963, there were some concerns voiced by Kennedy of declining public and political support for the Apollo program and the goal of a lunar landing. A few months later he was assasinated and President Lyndon Johnson continued the commitment by providing the budgetary and political support needed to accomplish the goal. At its peak in 1966, the NASA budget was over 4% of the federal budget. “The most expensive parts of the mission were the Apollo spacecraft (the Command Module and Lunar Module) and the huge Saturn V launch vehicle. A single Saturn V cost up to $375 million in 1969 — or, in today’s money, a few billion dollars.”
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Key Parts of the Apollo 11 Spacecraft Saturn V launcher – This was the large rocket that had its own internal guidance system to put the Command/Service Module (CSM) in a trajectory towards the moon. Command/Service Module (CSM) - This section along with Lunar Module (LM) were the parts of the spacecraft that were in orbit around the moon. The CSM was used to navigate the astronauts between the moon and earth. Both the SM and LM were jettisoned during the mission and the astronauts returned to earth in the CM. Lunar Module (LM) – This section was attached to the CSM during flight and during the mission it was detached, taking two of the astronauts to the moon surface, allowing them to land and explore the moon.
July 22 1969 Command/Service Module getting ready to rendevous with Lunar Module.
Lunar Module approaches Command/Service Module for docking with earthrise in background.
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Key People and Companies Who Contributed to the Successful Moon Mission MIT In August 1961, NASA contracted with the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory (later called the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory), to develop the Apollo guidance, navigation and control system. Dr. Charles Stark Draper was the head of MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory and starting in 1962, oversaw development of the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) Eldon C. Hall – Lead the hardware design work on the AGC.
Stark Draper
MIT also worked on the software for the AGC.
Eldon C. Hall 8
IBM There were four thousand IBM employees that built the computers and wrote many of the complex software programs that launched the Apollo missions, monitored the environmental and biomedical data during the mission and guided the astronauts safely back to earth. They had active roles in the mission in different parts of the country: - George Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama engineers and technicians, built the guiding instrument unit embedded in the Saturn V launcher. - At Cape Kennedy (Canaveral), Florida, they performed the final system tests and helped launch the 3000-ton rocket with its 40-ton payload. - At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, they sat beside the NASA flight directors, using real-time data to do the analyses needed to navigate the spacecraft from Earth orbit to lunar orbit and back. It was also here that two of the astronauts had used the IBM ® System/360 mainframe to calculate lift-off data required to launch the LM off the moon and return to the CSM, which was orbiting the moon.
IBM mainframes -These IBM employees are working at Mission Control on Apollo 11.
Gene Kranz, flight director on duty on July 20, 1969, said, “The systems information that we used to make the go, no-go decisions was developed by IBM, and the ultimate go, no-go decision was provided to me by computers operated by IBM engineers within NASA’s Mission Control Center. Without IBM and the systems they provided, we would not have landed on the moon.”
- At IBM in Owego, NY, and other locations they invented and built the miniaturized integrated circuitry used to shrink the equivalent of an IBM System/360 mainframe down from the size of a refrigerator to that of a suitcase and made it rugged enough to blast into space. 9
Raytheon The AGC computers were built by Raytheon. Semiconductor companies There were at least three different suppliers of the integrated circuits for the Apollo missions. They included Fairchild Semiconductor, Philco-Ford and Lansdale Semiconductor. . Assemblers at Raytheon testing, building AGC modules.
The Fairchild Semiconductor diffusion area in 1960 showing silicon transistor wafer diffusion furnaces baking impurities into the wafer.
Women inspecting and testing elements used during the Apollo missions at Lansdale Semiconductor.
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Key Components of the Apollo Guidance Computer Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) Overview The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a general purpose digital computer which used a well-designed, real time multi-tasking operating system, enabling astronauts to enter simple commands via a user interface to control the spacecraft. There were two identical computers, one for the CM and one for the LM. Prior to Apollo, the smallest computers were the size of a room. NASA, working with MIT and Fairchild Semiconductor, created the AGC, which weighed 70 pounds and was about 1 1/2 times the size of a laptop today. It was one of the first computers to use integrated circuits (about 2,800) using resistor-transistor logic (RTL) in a flat-pack. The design had to fit the components together in order to meet the mission requirements for computational capacity and miniaturization, which meant very limited size, weight and power consumption. NASA had 75 AGCs manufactured at an estimated cost of $200,000 each.
AGC specifications. 11
The AGC and the display and keyboard (DSKY) user interface.
The Block II design of the AGC flew the Apollo missions, incorporated a rugged case and sealed modules to protect them from the CM environment. Dimensions: 24"Ă—12.5"Ă—6" Weight: 70.1 pounds
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User Interface The user interface to the AGC was a small display and keyboard called the DSKY. Commands were entered numerically, as two-digit numbers: Verb, and Noun. Verb described the type of action to be performed and Noun specified which data was affected by the action specified by the Verb command. The DSKY then 'talked' back at them with five lines of numeric displays, and a small panel of 16 labelled lights. The commands entered pointed the CSM to the moon and a similar guidance computer in the LM helped guide it to a precise point on the moon. To complete the mission, around 10,500 DSKY keystrokes were required. Despite this volume of keystrokes, the astronauts reported that interacting with the AGC was intuitive and simple, that incorrect keystrokes "just felt wrong." Note: The AGC could also receive commands from computers on earth via a telemetry (radio) channel, allowing adjustments to be made in-flight.
AGC display and keyboard (DSKY) user interface unit. It was only a means to input keyboard data to the AGC, or to display visual information at command of the AGC. The LM had a single DSKY and the CM had two DSKY units. For a quick reference of the codes needed for data input, they were printed on a side panel within the LM and CM. Dimensions: 8"Ă—8"Ă—7" Weight: 17.5 pounds
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ROM Memory in the AGC The AGC used a unique form of Read Only Memory (ROM) known as "core rope memory" to store its operating program. This form of memory consisted of a series of rings and wires: A wire through a core represented a "1," around the core represented a "0". This form of memory was very reliable. This rope memory was made by hand, and was equivalent to 72 KB of storage. Manufacturing rope memory was laborious and slow, and it could take months to weave a program into the rope memory. If a wire went through one of the circular cores it represented a binary one, and those that went around a core represented a binary zero.
Core rope memory in the AGC.
Women at Raytheon weaving the software written by MIT programmers into the core rope memory.
Weaving the software into the core rope memory. 14
RAM Memory in the AGC
Software Development for the AGC
Magnetic-core memory was the leading form of random-access memory (RAM) at this time. The AGC had about 2048 words of erasable memory, which is equivalent to 4 KB. Just as a comparison, my laptop has 4 GB of RAM.
Software development for the AGC took place at MIT on a Honeywell 1800 minicomputer running at one tenth the real-time speed of the eventual AGC. As every module in the AGC was "potted," meaning dipped in a waterproof epoxy compound to protect it in space, there was a lot of pressure on the software team to be especially dedicated to error-free development. Yes, but at the time there were few procedures for ensuring consistency and the MIT software team was learning both the coding and the software management aspects of the project on the job. The use of core rope memory constrained the software developers. Software to be stored on core rope had to be delivered months before the mission so that the rope could be properly manufactured and tested. Once manufactured, it could not be altered easily since each sealed module required rewiring to change bits. The software not only had to be finished long in advance, but it had to be perfect.
AGC 1024-bit erasable magentic core memory module (front and back). RAM random access memory - volatile, info is lost if no power.
Some key parts of the software were stored in standard read-write magnetic-core memory and could be overwritten by the astronauts using the DSKY interface. All of the AGC’s software, which managed primary guidance, navigation, and control of the spacecraft’s various systems, was only 36 kilowords of ROM (about 72 kilobytes). A simple MS-Word document with an image could be this size today.
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Integrated Circuit (Microchip) and the Moon Mission Microchip History Texas Instrument's Kilby and Fairchild's Noyce had independently invented the integrated circuit (IC). In the summer of 1958, Jack Kilby, an engineer at Texas Instruments carved a complex circuit out of a single piece of germanium metal, and the "integrated circuit" - also known as the microchip - was created. In 1960, Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor quickly improved on Kilby's design, inventing the planar integrated circuit. Noyce's invention was enabled by the planar process developed by Jean Hoerni at Fairchild.
Jack Kilby - Texas Instruments
The industry preferred Fairchild's invention over Texas Instruments' because the transistors in planar ICs were interconnected by a thin film deposit, whereas Texas Instruments' invention required fine wires to connect the individual circuits.
Robert Noyce - Fairchild Semiconductor
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Microchip Use Concerns In the beginning of the Apollo program concerns were raised about the use of the integrated circuit for reliability, power consumption, noise generation, and noise susceptibility. At MIT in the early 1960’s, the designers of the AGC decided to build the computer using the newly-invented integrated circuit, but when this decision was made, the chip was untested, and its reliability was largely unknown. MIT’s decision did not go unchallenged. NASA contracted with AT&T to provide technical and managerial assistance for select technical issues. AT&T in turn established Bellcomm, an entity that carried out these analyses. In late 1962, Bellcomm recommended that IBM, not MIT, supply the AGC. Arguments reached members of the House of Representatives, who then asked NASA administrator James Webb for answers.
reliability, by exposing the chips to rigorous conditions of temperature, vibration, contamination, and other tests. If a chip failed these tests, the entire lot it came from was discarded. If a chip passed these tests, one could be confident that it would not fail during a mission. MIT also chose to remain with one type of chip so that it could be thoroughly tested. No AGC, on either the CM or LM, ever experienced a hardware failure during a mission. MIT did not entirely win because NASA specified that primary navigation for Apollo would be conducted from Houston, using its array of large IBM mainframe computers, with the on-board system (AGC) as a secondary.
Keep in mind that IBM was connected to many facets of the Apollo program. One of which was the role as the supplier of the computer that guided the Saturn V launcher. The Saturn did not use integrated circuits, but rather a more conservative circuit developed at IBM called the “Unit Logic Device.” The circuits were also installed in threes, “Triple Modular Redundancy” so that a failure of a single circuit would be “outvoted” by the other two. The MIT engineers argued in defense of their design and were able to persuade NASA that IBM computers should not be used in the CM and LM. The Lab worked closely with Fairchild Semiconductor to ensure
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Microchip Quandary
Microchip influence
In 1965, Gordon Moore at Fairchild Semiconductor wrote an essay on “cramming more components onto integrated circuits”, which became Moore’s Law: The density of computer chips would double every year and was later changed to every 18 months.
In 1961, integrated circuits were basic and very expensive; Texas Instruments was selling ICs to the military for about $1000 each. Over time, development of ICs resulted in dramatic improvements in production (which lowered costs), functionality, and reliability.
For Apollo, it meant that by the time of the Apollo 7 mission in October 1968, the six-device circuit specified for the computer was obsolete. Fairchild and others were supplying microchips that incorporated several hundred devices on a chip, but there was no way to test these new chips and incorporate them into the AGC.
In the early 1960s, NASA bought up to 60 per cent of the U.S. entire output of ICs, temporarily supporting an industry for which few other markets yet existed.
The Apollo contract was not the sole reason for the transformation of the microchip industry and Silicon Valley, but it was a major factor. Fairchild ended up not being the main supplier of Apollo microchips. Their design was licensed to Philco, which supplied the thousands of integrated circuits used in all the AGCs. Because the Abort Guidance System was specified a year or two after the AGC, its designers were able to take advantage of newer circuit designs, not from Fairchild but from one of its Silicon Valley competitors, Signetics.
In 1964, when Philco-Ford was chosen to supply the ICs used in the prototype AGC that operated in February 1965, the price had dropped to $25 each. The seventy-five AGCs that were built each contained five thousand identical microchips. By the time of the Apollo 11 mission, the Apollo program had purchased in excess of a million microchips. Keep in mind the requirements for the AGC to be powerful, lightweight and have a great energy star rating. ICs were needed to greatly help meet those requirements. Also, the Saturn V launcher needed advanced circuits for the onboard guidance computer. Scott Hubbard, former NASA Director, said, “There was a major shift in electronics and computing and at least half credit goes to Apollo. Without it, you wouldn't have a laptop. You'd still have things like the Univac. He added that the IC took the high-tech industry to a place of mass production and economies of scale”
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Eldon Hall (MIT) remarked in his book, Journey to the Moon, “It was the AGC more than any other single part of this program that drove IC development. In the early stages of the Apollo program, a large proportion of all ICs manufactured in the world were going to the AGC. Computationally, the AGC was behind contemporary technology by the time of Apollo 11, but this is a common feature of space programs that have multi-year timetables and systems of extreme complexity.� Government procurement drove the price of microchips down by a factor of fifty in just a matter of years. Without these public investments in the semiconductor industry, the iPod would cost $10,000 and be the size of a room today (just like the old mainframes). As microchips dropped in price they became more affordable for businesses and consumers alike, which helped spawn the digital era.
Fairchild Type 'G' Micrologic gate for the AGC. Type G three input NOR gate. In Feb. 1962 these cost $43.50 each.
Flatpack integrated circuits in the AGC.
AGC dual 3-input NOR gate - Example of an integrated circuit used in the AGC from Philco. 19
Overall Challenges With the Mission Just think about the complexity of the constraints facing the teams engaged on this effort – they had one chance to get it right – July 1969 was near the end of the decade (thinking back to the JFK speech to the nation). There was one AGC for the CM and one for the LM and they each had to work. Software development with rope memory, trajectory calculations, fuel economy, weight and size restrictions, new technology, were just some of the things that the people involved in the mission had to overcome to pull off a successful mission – and they did.
Final Thoughts The most striking observation in doing the research for this essay was the rope memory. I had never heard nor seen this type of memory or the complexity in weaving it.
This graph portrays the IC cost reduction realized during the evaluation procurements. Starting in Dec 1961 - Oct 1962.
Lastly, when I think of the statement that Neil Armstrong said as he stepped on to the moon – “that’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind”, the moon mission really did change our world. The advances in the microchip industry as a result of the Apollo program gave us the laptops and many other electronic products and advancements in different industries that have influenced and in some cases enriched our lives.
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Events Leading Up to the First Lunar Landing July 29, 1958 NASA was formed. April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into orbit. May 5, 1961 Alan Shephard took a 15 min suborbital flight. May 25, 1961 JFK Speech Joint Meeting of Congress. Jan 27, 1967 Apollo 1 tragedy on when a fire broke on in a launchpad test. Three astronauts were killed. No missions were designated as Apollo 2 or 3. Nov 9, 1967 Apollo 4 First Saturn V launch. Jan. 22, 1968 Apollo 5 First flight of the Lunar Module. April 4, 1968 Apollo 6 Second flight of Saturn V, declared Saturn V man-rated. Oct. 11, 1968 Apollo 7 first manned Apollo mission, orbited earth and many of the systems for the Apollo 11 launch were tested. Dec. 21, 1968 Apollo 8 went to the dark side of the moon and back. March 3, 1969 Apollo 9 tested the lunar module while in the earth orbit. May 18, 1969 Apollo 10 dry run around the moon. July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon. 21
References Online http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/apollo/ http://www.abc.net.au/science/moon/computer.htm https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/11660640jpg?id=11660 https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/apollo-guidance-computer-and-first-silicon-chips http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html http://authors.library.caltech.edu/5456/1/hrst.mit.edu/hrs/apollo/public/visual3.htm http://www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/aerospace-systems-are-first-the-applications-for-ics-in-computers/ http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/263/1093 http://www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/diffusion-process-developed-for-transistors/ http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/memory-storage/ http://www.computerworld.com/article/2525898/app-development/nasa-s-apollo-technology-has-changed-history.html http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Apollo-11-The-computers-that-put-man-on-the-moon http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/one-giant-leap-the-apollo-guidance-compu/184404139 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326455 http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2009/12/smart-apollo.cfm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Semiconductor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-core_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186600-apollo-11-moon-landing-45-years-looking-back-at-mankinds-giant-leap https://github.com/rburkey2005/virtualagc http://www.history.com
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References (con't) Online (con't) http://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch2-5.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.1201-pa.html http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/ https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-034-030.aspx http://www.klabs.org/history/history_docs/integrated_circuits/ic4-po.pdf http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/10presidents.html http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/thismonth/this_month_july08.html http://www.nasa.gov/62282main_countdown_launch.wav https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk_speech_text.html#.V7EXr5grLIU http://www.space.com/26630-apollo-11-vintage-tech-innovations.html http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/2011/05/on-urgent-national-needs.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/5893387/Apollo-11-moon-landing-top-15-Nasa-inventions.html http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/the_semiconductor_revolution_m http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1856/1 http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/manufacturing/howchipmade.shtml good explanation of diffusion http://www.universetoday.com/113428/apollo-11-splashdown-45-years-ago-on-july-24-1969-concludes-1st-moon-landing-mission-gallery/# http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/ibm-and-univac-in-the-apollo-program/ Book Isaacson, Walter (2014). – The Innovators – (pg 182). New York: Simon & Schuster.
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