It's a temptation, watching many of the 40th Anniversary retrospectives, to think of the Apollo space program as a triumph of power and industrial might. The superpowers' space programs were, of course, political and chauvinistic, designed to showcase national wealth. But there's a better way 
of looking at the program, Dennis Wingo reminded me recently. Masses of money helped put man on the Moon of course, but the Moon program is really a tale of engineering improvisation and human organisation. Space expert and entrepreneur Dennis Wingo put the first webserver - an Apple Mac - in orbit, for just $7m, and has helped piece together a lot of historical material that NASA didn't appreciate at the time - and forgot about, or wiped. There is one piece of kit in particular that encapsulates two stories: NASA's negligence, and the quite amazing improvisation of the engineers. It's the Lunar Orbiter, which mapped the moon's surface prior to manned descent. Wingo painstakingly recovered and restored much of the imagery it took. To give us an idea of how much Apollo owed to seat-of-the-pants ingenuity, it's worth remembering that the story of the Orbiter begins in 1961 - the year of the first human orbit of the Earth by Yuri Gagarin. The space pioneers were seeing a high death rate from test subjects - dogs (the USSR) and chimps (the USA), the latter proving to be a duff move - the chimps panicked in the claustrophobic conditions.
of looking at the program, Dennis Wingo reminded me recently. Masses of money helped put man on the Moon of course, but the Moon program is really a tale of engineering improvisation and human organisation. Space expert and entrepreneur Dennis Wingo put the first webserver - an Apple Mac - in orbit, for just $7m, and has helped piece together a lot of historical material that NASA didn't appreciate at the time - and forgot about, or wiped. There is one piece of kit in particular that encapsulates two stories: NASA's negligence, and the quite amazing improvisation of the engineers. It's the Lunar Orbiter, which mapped the moon's surface prior to manned descent. Wingo painstakingly recovered and restored much of the imagery it took. To give us an idea of how much Apollo owed to seat-of-the-pants ingenuity, it's worth remembering that the story of the Orbiter begins in 1961 - the year of the first human orbit of the Earth by Yuri Gagarin. The space pioneers were seeing a high death rate from test subjects - dogs (the USSR) and chimps (the USA), the latter proving to be a duff move - the chimps panicked in the claustrophobic conditions.For further details visit as : www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/22/destination_moon/
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