Moon Machines: The Navigation Computer

Hello, this is the first blog for my Software Design and Architecture course. This entry is going to talk about a documentary video titled: Moon Machines: The Navigation Computer, which was produced by the Science Channel in 2009. Generally, this video is about the Apollo spacecraft’s navigation software and how it was developed by the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Its principal purpose was to be helpful in the first man attempt to reach and land successfully on the moon in the late sixties.

Basically, all started with a kind of space race between the US and the USSR for reaching the moon first. NASA, in order to achieve this or “winning that race” hired MIT’s engineers for creating a key software (the one that I already mentioned) that was going to help and ensure their trip and landing on the moon.

It is incredible how, despite the of lack of knowledge on the field and the existing technological complications, the work teams figured out how to successfully develop that software. There was no doubt that they were capable of building just the spacecraft they needed. But, develop a completely new software of the kind that had never been seen on that moment and without knowing how to do it, that was a really brave and risky decision considering the time and money invested on that project. 

This was an incredible achievement in that time, but what really surprised me was that this “key software” was about only 72 KB (that is like nothing). There is no doubt that, because of this event, people realized the power and how helpful a computer system and software could be for humans in any possible field. Now I have a question, what are we capable of with the technology we have nowadays? I’m sure surprising and unexpected things are coming soon.

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