I sometimes see it stated as a rationale for the continuation of the manned space program that the push to get to the moon caused transistors, micro electronics, etc. etc. to be invented.
I know a lot of this stuff was in process well before we even thought about the moon as a realistic goal, but I never call people on this as it’s a harmless belief. I do wonder, however, if there are any modern inventions or technologies of note that can factually be attributed the space program?
Here’s what NASA has to say:
Tang.
the previous cite is good, the space program has produced many spinoffs.
electronic miniaturization was a major consequence. miniaturization is good and would happen anyway though it was accelerated and pushed to the extreme by necessity for space.
radio technology was pushed into ways suitable for use in spacecraft.
OK… not a factual reply, but this one got me thinking.
I was listening to a recent podcast from the American Museum of Natural History where Neil Degrasse Tyson hosted a round table discussion with a bunch of notable space experts. (A 2 hour ‘chat like they were at a bar’ that happened soon after Obama cut some of the NASA funding, so it was a lively discussion.)
So, one of the points several of them made was the that the largest beneficial effect of the 1960’s space program was it’s influence on kids and their futures. Basically, that these young kids that were excited about space travel in the late 60’s got into science, computers, mathematics, and engineering. And when they became adults in mid-career in the late 80’s and 90’s that these were the generation of people that really kicked off the current technology boom we are in. One of their main points was that the largest benefit of going back to the moon and Mars, was not so much the direct technology that you get from that effort, but it was the effect it has on inspiring the next generation of engineers and scientists to do even more and to get more kids into those lines of work. Basically, the point was that anything you find/do on the moon or Mars or reap directly from the effort was inconsequential compared to the future benefit to society created by the kids inspired to go into the sciences during their youth.
Podcast Feed: http://www.amnh.org/podcast/rss.xml
Actual Podcast: 10th Annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate
I’m going to have to dispute miniaturization as a spinoff. While it was helpful, integrated circuit development was driven by the consumer market. In fact, because of the need for rad hardening, ICs for use in space used more conservative design rules than what was available commercially. In fact the fab at Sandia, which made ICs for space probes as well as for things that go boom, needed special licenses from IC design and manufacturing companies to produce chips that had long been end of lifed in the commercial market.
The defense industry in general has been moving to the use of COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) components instead of Mil-Spec components because of cost, capability, and because IC reliability is just as good or better these days. That’s not true in extreme environments, though.
It is telling that the most advanced computers on the shuttle are the laptops the astronauts take with them.
I have to agree with Voyager-integrated circuits used in space are generations behind the ones in your PC. Apollo was the first time that integrated circuits were used in space-stuff like quad nand gates, 4 bit shift registers…stuff that hasn’t been used commercially for years.
A lot of people think that velcro was invented by the space program-it was not.
Hey, I did my undergrad logic labs with quad nand gates and the like, and this was during Apollo. Please don’t tell me they didn’t give us state of the art chips to work with! 
Tang - the orange juice substitute. Supposedly part of the astronauts food rations.
Anyone else remember Space Food Sticks?
Pens that write upside down?
No. But I remember reading a hilarious essay about them. I think it was by James Lileks, but I’m not sure.
You can’t argue that, because we now use older generations of ICs in space, that they weren’t developed because of the Moon race. Those are two completely different things.
Yeh, while the engineers where working around the clock on that one, Buzz just brought along his pencil.
In that link, NASA claims credit for the smoke detector and cordless power tools. In this link, NASA disclaims credit for the smoke detector and cordless power tools. They ought to get their story straight.
Incidentally, here’s the scoop on the “space pen.”
Teflon was invented before the space program. However, it’s use in the space program helped make it a household name.
Actually, although the consumer market has driven the technology and reduced the cost of IC manufacturing for the past three decades, the initial thrust for practical IC circuits was for the LGM-30F ‘Minuteman II’ guidance system. The IBM AP-101 computers used on Apollo, although purpose designed for that application, were an outgrowth of systems that IBM was already working on and didn’t have much in the way of novel hardware development (although I understand that some of the bit-mapping and core instruction set coding was quite innovative for the time.)
The biggest difference between mil-spec hardware and commercial (COTS) hardware is that the mil-spec stuff is required to be tested, labeled, inspected, and pedigreed to the pertinent quality and environment standards defined by MIL-STD and DOD-STD. Most mil-spec hardware is actually commercial grade hardware with more paperwork to assure that it isn’t counterfeit or underperforming, and in fact, many of the MIL-STDs have been downgraded to MIL-HDBKs (i.e. not contractual requirements, just recommendations) or supplemented by applicable commercial NAS, SAE, or AIAA standards. Of course, going to COTS has increased the incidence of counterfeit parts, and arguably hasn’t saved as much money as hoped, and often results in serious incompatibility or undertest issues. In the aerospace and space vehicle world, COTS is largely considered a dirty word, and we often term it “Crap Off The Shelf”.
As far as technology developed specifically for the Apollo program, there was plenty of it…but most of it was applicable specifically to rocket systems, satellite/space vehicle communications, and pressure suits and habitats, especially materials and fuel cell technology. There are relatively few innovations that actually fed back into commercial products; indeed, the Apollo program very wisely made use of innovations coming from the medical and computing fields.
Stranger
And, by extension, one of the funniest *Seinfeld *episodes ever!
Well, treatments and therapies for a number of neurological conditions were advanced very rapidly while NASA was investigating the effects of variable gravity (Acceleration rates and free fall) on humans and animals. Bone diseases as well, although most of the benefit came later on.
Time measurement, and synchronization over distance as a sheaf of technologies were also beneficiaries of the space program. This too continued long after the Apollo programs. The same is true for the technologies of surveying, and navigation. Were there specific inventions? Thousands of things used during Apollo were patented. Tens of thousands, more likely.
Of course Rocket Science got a hell of boost.
Tris
Oh yeah. I was just the age to be the center of their target demographic. I recall several flavors, none very good. I think we probably had them in the house for a few cycles of eat the whole box & buy more. But they quickly fell out of favor because they just weren’t very tasty (kid reason) and were kinda expensive for a kid treat (parental reason).
And unlike the IC size debate above, the original late 1960s space version is much smaller than the current 21st Century commercial COTS equivalent: the granola & protein “power bar”.
ETA: whaddaya know … Per Space Food Sticks - Wikipedia the Aussies still make & eat them today. They must have have hella space program.