Author: James B. Shearer
Date: 12:48:08 06/04/99
Go up one level in this thread
On June 03, 1999 at 22:58:26, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>I hate to argue, but this is _all_ nonsense... what came out of the US space
>program? Micro-electronics, because weight and physical size was a _huge_
>issue. No NASA, micro-electronics would be behind 20 years or more. More?
>Easy. Communications (satellites). Not really any need to enumerate them.
>The space program more than paid for itself in spin-offs that made life better
>all over the planet...
This is absurd, without NASA the computer industry would be just about
where it is now. NASA is notorious for using chips which are far behind the
state of the art. (Actually there are some legitimate reasons for this as space
is a different environment and standard chips are not space rated. On the other
hand NASA moves very slowly compared to the electronics industry as shown for
example by the space shuttle computers which were frozen for many years becoming
more and more obselete. NASA slowly adopts industry innovations not vice
versa.)
James B. Shearer
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