Bob wrote:


While I agree with most of what you just said, you are a bit too
harsh. NASA did do some important work on communications - or I should
say NASA funded private contractors to do the real work. And there is
no doubt that NASA was the primary sponsor of the microelectronics and
computer revolutions. And the satellite programs definitely had
military applications even if the main purpose was civilian
communications.

Transistors were invented in Cherry Hill, NJ in 1947, and released for
public use in 1948. NASA has zero, zilch, nada to do with it. Cherry
Hill is where Bell Telephone Labs was. NASA or its predecessor agency
did not even exist at the time. The solid state electronics revolution
was initiated in a purely commercial (not academtic!) context.

An important rule of our fascist dictatorship is that the Military
Industrial Complex does not miss a trick. Just remember that
throughout history man has always used new technology for military
purposes first.

Not true. Transistors were first used to automate telephone call
switching. The phone company was -desparate- to get out of the bind of a
switching system that was mostly manual. Only later were transistors
used in computers which had military applications as well as commercial
applications.

It was the Bell Lab team of Wilson and Penzias who senendipitously
provied the clinching proof for the big bang thoery. That was in 1965
when they were playing around with a mostly obsolete communications
system antenna in New Jersey. They got togehter with Dr. Dicke at
Princeton, just a few miles down the road and the rest is history. No
military connection there, whatsoever.

Bob Kolker