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> NASA bootstrapped the semiconductor industry by buying up most of the world's supply. Without the Apollo program we may only just now have gotten smartphones.
by myrmidon 3y ago
> NASA bootstrapped the semiconductor industry by buying up most of the world's supply. Without the Apollo program we may only just now have gotten smartphones.
I strongly disagree with that. The semiconductor industry was thriving before NASA even existed, none of the central enabling inventions (MOSFET transistors, semiconductor manufacturing techniques) were made there or even related to the Apollo program, and "computers" as in turing complete machines already existed before NASA and had plenty of applications apart from space travel.
NASA/Apollo giving todays smartphones a 10 year technology boost is just pure fiction and not even remotely supported by facts.
- knorker 3y agoWe can't do an A/B with history, but I'm basing it on things like: > By the mid-1960s, according to the PBS documentary, NASA was buying 60 percent of the integrated circuits produced in the United States. Fairchild was a major supplier, shipping about 100,000 devices for the Apollo space program in 1964 alone.
- peterfirefly 3y agoIt's right up there with velcro and teflon.