If I walk around with my Laptop, 3G Mobile Phone, Sat-Nav, Ipod and digital watch - how does the processing power of what I am carrying compare to what NASA had in the 60's? Could I get to the moon on it?
2007-12-13 02:34:57 · 4 answers · asked by DjRobin69 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Engineering
The Apollo 11 spacecraft had less processing power than your laptop. If your laptop was used as a guidance computer with the correct program and hardware interfaces to the spacecraft it could enable you to reach the moon.
(I suggest you don't run Windows and take a spare battery.)
2007-12-13 03:00:16 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Your laptop, alone, has more computing power than all of NASAs computers put together in the 1960s. Your digital watch is just about as accurate as the clocks they had then (although 'atomic' time references were in use). The mobile phone and GPS nav systems wouldn't be of much use on the moon, but the fundamental technology could be adapted (it would have to be made radiation-hard though).
But.... without a large rocket booster (i.e. Saturn V) all that technology can't actually get you to the moon.
.
2007-12-13 02:52:18 · answer #2 · answered by tlbs101 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Apollo Mission had several computers both on-board and ground-based. The on-board consisted of 5 computers, 4 IBM and 1 Rockwell that operated on a 'voting' system that controlled guidance, telemetry and air supply. On the ground NASA had a nework of 11 IBM 360s (various models) plus a networking protocol to IBM's own Remote Data Facility and a Data General machine.
Although not even collectively as powerful as your laptop the software was very elegant, bloatware-free and surprisingly fast and very terse - a lesson for today's programmers.
2007-12-14 19:35:44 · answer #3 · answered by crazeygrazey 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well past the moon ;)
2007-12-13 02:40:13 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋