66 years

66 Years

I know I said this week was going to be about NASA but we need to take a minute and appreciate, that the time between the first flight of The Wright Brothers in 1903, and Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon in 1969, is only sixty six years. Thats and extraordinarily short amount of time considering that people have been trying to figure out how to fly since 400 BC. In the average life span of most of our grandparents and great grandparents the human race went from horse and buggy to landing a person on the moon. To understand how extraordinary a force NASA was and is, it is truly important to understand the things that happened between 1903 and 1969. 

The Wright Brothers

Arguably the most influential and important duo in history, responsible for starting the most important technological evolution that this planet has ever seen, the first men to take powered flight, were bicycle repair and salesmen, that didn’t have a high school diploma. Its important to note that before the Wright Brothers, lighter than air flight and gliders did exist. Although they are credited with being the first people to fly something heavier than air under power, they weren’t the first people to achieve flight. Their breakthrough was the invention of three-axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium. Its important to note that this was and is still the standard of fixed-wing flight. Their design was so revolutionary, that it is still used today. The historical reference on the Wright Brothers and early flight is quite extensive. I will dedicate a later week to the history of flight, but one last extraordinary thing to note is that the Wright Brothers flight took place almost 10 years before Henry Ford popularized the idea of the car. So its not that the plane was invented before the car, its that when they took their historical flight, the prime means of transportation were horses and bicycles. 

The World Wars

It is extremely unfortunate that developing the most efficient and powerful ways to destroy other human beings lead to rapid and advanced technological advancement. Its deeply disturbing but all you have to do is look through the course of human history to see that the biggest “booms” in human and technological advancement occur when civilizations and empires go to war. The utility of the airplane was developed and proven during “The War to End All Wars” and perfected in the war that came after that. 

To say that the planes used at the beginning WW1 were basic would be an understatement. The cockpits were open and offered zero protection to its pilots. The controls and instruments were rudimentary if they were there at all. The pilot would have to use whatever maps they could find to navigate, often using railways and landmarks to guide them. Maps at the time just weren’t made for navigation through the air. Throughout the war however, planes became faster and more powerful. Planes that were made of light wood and fabric soon evolved into stronger woods and thin pressed metals. Each side would trade technological advancements and dominance. The concept of “Air Supremacy” was developed during WW1 as an important military strategy that in previous wars never had to be considered. By the end of the War in 1918, only fifteen years after the Wright Brothers flight, planes were now durable, reliable, fast, and could fly at a higher altitude. After WW1 these planes were repurposed and continued to serve civilian needs. Bombers became postal and some of the first commercial planes. The “fighter” planes became crop dusters and training planes. 

World War II saw much of the same types of back and forth evolution between The Axis and Allies. The stakes though were a bit higher. The Nazi war machine was making unimaginable advancements in technology. The world would not succumb to the threat of global fascism and we kept pace and in many ways the allies exceeded the Germans. However in 1944, only 42 years after the Wright Brothers flight, and in Orville Wrights lifetime, the Germans succeeded in launching the first ballistic missile. 

The Sound Barrier

Wilbur Wright who died in 1948, lived to see the sound barrier be broken. The sound barrier is a measure of speed, it is the speed that sound waves travel. If an object can travel faster than 767 mph, it is traveling faster than the speed of sound. Many scientists and engineers believed that it was scientifically impossible for humans to travel that fast. Attempts were made on land and on water to break through that barrier. This barrier was key, because even back then rocket scientists knew that to achieve orbit around the earth you need to be traveling at 17,600 mph. If its impossible to go faster than 767 mph, then human beings were never going to leave earth. In October of 1947, only 44 years after the Wright flyer, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a Bell X-1. 

The Cold War

Once again war precipitated exponential growth. From 1947- 1991 we would trade off achievements with the Soviet Union. If it wasn’t for such political turmoil, the competition, or “space race” between the Soviets and the United States would be revered as an amazing time period during the late 20th century. However the ulterior motives of both the US and USSR were clear. The rockets developed in the early days of NASA and Soviet Space Program were converted ICBMS. The Redstone, Atlas, and Titan rockets were all developed as ICBMS first and then repurposed by NASA to launch experiments, satellites, and humans in to space. The only rocket almost completely developed by NASA was the Saturn rocket family. It was rejected as an ICBM. NASA took its design and developed it into the rocket that eventually would take astronauts to the moon.