Moon Machines… FROM HELL

Don’t mind the title of this blog; it’s just me being silly.

Well, it is amazing, isn´t it? Indeed, for a reason this is humanity’s greatest technological achievement! And, as always, it is cleverness which leads the way. Holy molly, they weaved computer programs to save memory?! Amazing, and quite smart! As a former space fanboy, I knew some things about the Apollo programs. However, I did not know anything about all of these efforts. Now, knowing all this work that was placed with sweat and headaches by my fellow engineers, just makes me have more respect for them and this great achievement.

Besides the cleverness, what caught my attention is how recent software engineering was for its time. In this documentary, we get to see how innovative the command module’s computer was. Gee, that little machine is a giant step toward chip-manufacturing at the tiniest of magnitudes. But, talking about software, one of the problems arising from such innovative computer was software redundancy and lack of reusability. Of course, this relates to our course on Software Architecture. As engineers who have learnt from past mistakes and, at the same time, standing on the shoulders of giants, we have come a long way in professionalizing our field. Perhaps this giant step was the beginning of unveiling, at least intuitively, the need for software patterns and heuristics to make our code as reliable, reusable, and articulate as possible.

As all great achievement usually do, they inspire. At least for me, now I know someone more to look up to who also happened to work in the Computer Science field. These heroes may not be the stereotypical strongman; in a way, they are more human. What they have shown, though, is dedication and a willingness to learn. Maybe they did know how great of an achievement they would be contributing to, not only towards the goal of making humanity spacefaring, but to our field too.

GAZMaracaibo. (2020, Jul 20). Máquinas Lunares: La Computadora de Navegación [Vidro]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avy1YQzd0yk&list=PLnwQbMliel6ymcjlTkXyi7myTIIYlgeLm&index=4