Off to the Moon

As the debate continues on if it is prudent to spend money on space missions while there are other needs, it is worth reading how NASA helped invent Silicon Valley.

But if you’d visited the region in 1930, all you’d have seen was a two-lane highway cutting through acres and acres of nothing but farmland and tiny hamlets, and not even a hint of what would someday become arguably the most important commercial technology center in the world.

In December of that year, however, word came that the U.S. Navy was going to open an air station in Sunnyvale, Calif., one that would handle gigantic airships and that would need a mammoth hangar.

The result? The Sunnyvale Naval Air Station, later known as NASA Moffett Field. And today, Moffett is home to NASA’s Ames Research Center, a facility that is at the heart of Silicon Valley, both geographically and figuratively. In 1930 the region didn’t know what was about to arrive, but it soon realized how much change was coming. [How NASA helped invent Silicon Valley – CNET News]

2 thoughts on “Off to the Moon

  1. None of those stupidos will ever say that English literature or history shouldn’t get Government funding.
    Many of such fellas don’t believe in “national borders” but will never demand that US or Europe address poverty in other countries instead of focusing on their own space research.
    Of course they will say that about Sanskrit literature, but for different reasons.
    So it is not that these guys have any genuine concern for the poor, or a problem with research. They don’t like India to be powerful. Period.

  2. That was an interesting piece of news. It was indeed good to learn the beginnings of the Silicon Valley. I never thought that NASA and Silicon valley had anything in common! But I don’t think that may have big consequences for Indian Space Research, as they are not doing anything new and borrowing a lot of technology from the West (Maybe even from the East – Russia). But we could at least be proud that we were able to replicate the model. There is one more advantage of such showcasing – We may get more orders to launch satellites of other countries. This is commercially advantageous.
    Destination Infinity

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