Apollo 11's flight to the moon last week prompted NASA

Computerworld - The 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's flight to the moon last week prompted NASA and its supporters to reflect on the technology advances jump-started by the Apollo space program.

The third U.S. space flight program after Mercury and Gemini, Apollo is credited with greatly accelerating the development of several key, still-used technologies, including the integrated circuit, which dramatically altered the face of the computer industry in the 1960s and beyond.

NASA says that other technologies developed at least in part for the Apollo program are now used in products ranging from kidney dialysis machines to water purification systems and athletic shoes.

Experts also noted that without the technology research and development that accompanied the Apollo space missions, top tech companies like Intel Corp. may not have been founded, and we likely wouldn't be using devices like laptops and BlackBerries to post information on social networks like Facebook or Twitter.

The Apollo program was launched in 1961. It started with the ill-fated, never-flown Apollo 1 spacecraft in 1967 and ended with the Apollo 17 mission, which brought the program's final crew to the moon in 1972.

"During the mid- to late 1960s, when Apollo was being designed and built, there was significant [technology] advancement," said Scott Hubbard, a Stanford University professor and a former director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale, Calif.From:www.computerworld.com