Seeds of Discovery: Chapters in the Economic History of Innovation Within NASA
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Seeds of Discovery: Chapters in the Economic History of Innovation within NASA Edited by Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy 2015 MASTER FILE AS OF Friday, January 15, 2016 Draft Rev. 20151122sj Seeds of Discovery (Launius & McCurdy eds.) – ToC Link p. 1 of 306 Table of Contents Seeds of Discovery: Chapters in the Economic History of Innovation within NASA .............................. 1 Introduction: Partnerships for Innovation ................................................................................................ 7 A Characterization of Innovation ........................................................................................................... 7 The Innovation Process .......................................................................................................................... 9 The Conventional Model ....................................................................................................................... 10 Exploration without Innovation ........................................................................................................... 12 NASA Attempts to Innovate .................................................................................................................. 16 Pockets of Innovation............................................................................................................................ 20 Things to Come ...................................................................................................................................... 23 1: The Origins and Flagship Project of NASA’s International Program—The Ariel Case Study .......... 31 Introduction: Coordinating Among Emerging Centers of Space Science & Technology .................. 31 The IGY Satellite Years: Coordinating Resources for Space Science ................................................. 33 NASA Formation: Research Coordination Sustainable Within the US Political Economy ............... 36 Ariel Years, 1959-1981: The Collective Learning Process Sustained ............................................... 38 Concluding Thoughts: Mutually Beneficial Coordination with the World’s Lean Space Powers .... 43 2: Global Instantaneous Telecommunications and the Development of Satellite Technology ........... 48 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 48 John R. Pierce and the Bell Laboratories Satellite Telecommunications Initiative .......................... 49 Hughes Aircraft Company Enters the Satellite Communications Competition ................................ 50 T. Keith Glennan and the Pursuit of Satellite Telecommunication Policy ........................................ 51 Kennedy and the Redefinition of Policy .............................................................................................. 56 The Telstar Publicity Harvest ............................................................................................................... 57 The Satellite Communications Act of 1962 and the Communications Satellite Corporation .......... 59 NASA and the Continued Advance of Communications Satellites ..................................................... 62 An Emphasis on Lessons ....................................................................................................................... 64 3: The Other Side of Moore’s Law—The Apollo Guidance Computer, the Integrated Circuit, and the Microelectronics Revolution, 1962-1975 ................................................................................................ 70 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 70 The Launch Vehicle Digital Computer—the First of the Five Apollo Computers ............................. 72 The Apollo Guidance Computers on the CM and LM—the Second and Third .................................. 76 Reliability and the Electronics Industry, ca. 1960 .......................................................................... 76 Draft Rev. 20151223sj Seeds of Discovery (Launius & McCurdy eds.) – ToC Link p. 2 of 306 The Planar Process and the Invention of the IC .................................................................................. 78 The High-Reliability Program ........................................................................................................... 79 Texas Instruments ............................................................................................................................. 81 The Apollo Contract .............................................................................................................................. 86 The Block II Computer and Moore’s Law ........................................................................................ 89 The Abort Guidance System – the Fourth Computer ...................................................................... 89 Apollo-Soyuz and the Fifth Computer.............................................................................................. 91 The Legacy of the AGC and the Space Shuttle Computers .............................................................. 92 Conclusion—Did the NASA Contract Jump Start the Microelectronics Revolution? ....................... 95 4: NASA’s Mission Control Center—The Space Program’s Capitol as Innovative Capital ................. 104 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 104 A Complex Story .................................................................................................................................. 105 Building the MCC ................................................................................................................................. 109 Operations ............................................................................................................................................ 115 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 118 5: Lessons of Landsat—From Experimental Program to Commercial Land Imaging, 1969-1989 ... 124 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 124 Early Landsat Years, 1966-1978 ........................................................................................................ 125 Commercialization and the Failure of Innovation ............................................................................ 128 The Reagan Administration’s Vision for Landsat ............................................................................. 129 NOAA’s Call for Contractors in 1983 .................................................................................................. 130 Congress Votes Commercialization: Land Remote Sensing Commercialization Act of 1984 ........ 132 Commercialization to Contract: NOAA takes Landsat to Market, 1984-1985 ................................ 135 Commercialization Collapses, 1986-1989 ......................................................................................... 136 Commercial Consequences ................................................................................................................. 139 Lessons of Landsat .............................................................................................................................. 141 6: Selling the Space Shuttle—Early Developments............................................................................... 146 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 146 Pricing the Space Shuttle .................................................................................................................... 147 Revising the Initial Pricing Policy ...................................................................................................... 150 Cultivating New Shuttle Users ............................................................................................................ 153 Joint Endeavor Agreements ................................................................................................................ 155 Marketing the Space Shuttle ............................................................................................................... 159 Draft Rev. 20151223sj Seeds of Discovery (Launius & McCurdy eds.) – ToC Link p. 3 of 306 Offering a Ride into Space ................................................................................................................... 160 A Private Sector Alternative? ............................................................................................................. 162 Lessons Learned .................................................................................................................................. 163 7: Something Borrowed, Something Blue—Re-purposing NASA’s Spacecraft ................................... 169 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 169 Bricolage in NASA Spaceflight Programs ..........................................................................................