Transistors

[Craig]

I'm no fan of modern America. I think in the Fifties to end of Seventies it was a much better country. The investment in technology and education in the Sixties created a big difference. A lot of that technology came from German science which led from the V2 rocket to Apollo.

It was alas all driven by the arms race with the USSR. The dual purpose of the motors on the Saturn V was as a IBCM delivery system. And the kludge that was the Space Shuttle was also driven by the US military, who wanted a configuration that could deliver military satellites into orbit. All ten of those DoD missions were in the first forty flights, with the last one in 1992. All the remaining flights were commercial or scientific, but the kludge design persisted and killed two crews.

Even commercial companies were intended to show how US capitalism could do things better than Communism. Rochester in upstate NY had Kodak and Xerox. In the mid 80's the Kodak site had 130,000 employees. They did absolutely everything in house - massive injection moulding and diecasting shops, lens grinding and assembly, sheet metal press shops - absolutely everything. It had a goods line to bring in raw materials and ship complete product - and bring in the food for the massive network of canteens. Ten tons of meat a day, just as an example. I worked there for a time, and it was a thing to behold.

Kodak is now a pale shadow, even filing for bankruptcy.