The Apollo 11 Mission gave us so many incredible things, along with landing on the moon. But do you know what other incredible technological advances this amazing mission created and how many of these creations are still used today?
With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing still fresh in our minds - it inspired this blog to dig in a little deeper. After all the amazing tributes, videos, art installations, gatherings, museum pieces, and beautiful stories told in remembrance of Apollo 11 there is still a little bit more behind the picture that a lot of people don't realize. The reminder of the 50th anniversary is a reminder that this whole mission was extremely unlikely to happen as soon as it did, and on many levels, it almost didn't happen. But at its amazing core, it rapidly developed the pace of technology and development. Things needed to be fixed now, and they were. This mission and the Apollo journey also caused a dramatic shift in electronics and computer systems. But thanks to these all-new innovations three brave men made it to the moon, thanks to the brilliant minds left behind on earth. But, did you know a lot of that technology that was sitting at the command station or in the lunar lander is still used to this day? So many incredible and important gadgets and things were created by this amazing mission and we have better technology today because of it! The Apollo missions were responsible for the creation of the fly-by-wire, mainly influenced and created out of a suggestion made by Ohio Astronaut Neil Armstrong. This was a huge new upgrade that went from controlling machines by pedals and sticks by their pilots moved into a total digital computer to control it. The fly-by-wire is used on basically every commercial airplane today! The whole system of controlling the rocket launches and any machines went from mechanical control to digital control, which bled into everyday technology not long after man was on the moon. This was the birth of computer-controlled cars. These missions also lead to the birth of the integrated circuit, the technology that was the birth of the microchip. This technology did away manual assembly of separate transistors. They are used in nearly all electronic equipment today. The integrated circuits were developed to create a small computer system that was very light an didn't take up a lot of room, nor did it require massive power. Thus, your laptop was born. Intel Corp, your laptops, and blackberries, and cellphones may never have been invented without the Apollo team. Due strongly to the horrible disaster fire of the Apollo 1 mission, more fire-resistant materials were created especially for the Apollo 11 mission. These materials were made out of a substance called PBI. The Apollo 11 mission was more focused on in-flight suits and these new suits were used for all kinds of space exploration and was instrumental for space flight. You'll find it today in firefighters suits and motorsports for race suits. But DuPont started using a material called Nomex after the use of PBI which is being used in most race suits and was found in the 21 layers that made up the space missions during the Apollo 11 missions. The company that created the spacesuits for the Apollo 11 Crew, and that still build them today, are the same company that builds the lighter than air components found in the Goodyear Blimp. Special heat coating was created for the Apollo 11 mission to enter safety back into the atmosphere lead to a spin-off product to create heat resistant paints and foams for planes. This lead to the creation of the first epoxy. Portable self-contained drills that were made for the Apollo program specifically to drill at least 10 feet into the lunar surface to take samples back home had an incredibly strong lightweight core to it. Black and Decker took this new technology to create a mini vacuum cleaner. You might know it as a little something called a Dust Buster! Other Amazing inventions and inspirations from the Apollo 11 and Apollo missions also include:
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AuthorJeremy Sonntag & Archives
November 2019
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