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Secondary Reading on the Apollo Guidance
Computer
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Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the
Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). Though Edwards does not directly discuss the Apollo Guidance Computer, his
efforts to weave the story of electronic digital computing's development into the context
of Cold War politics and culture provide a useful background for students interested in
the AGC's political aspects. |
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James E. Tomayko, Computers Take Flight: A History of
NASA's Pioneering Digital Fly-by-Wire Project (Washington: NASA History Office, 2000).
Tomayko details the use of an Apollo Guidance Computer as the first
digital control computer in a high-speed jet
aircraft. |
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Paul E. Ceruzzi, Beyond the Limits: Flight Enters the
Computer Age (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).
Written to coincide with a gallery at the Smithsonian Institution's
National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, Paul Ceruzzi's book discusses a variety
of twentieth-century aerospace computers, both analog and digital, including the Apollo
Guidance Computer. |
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Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: An Historical
Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).
MacKenzie explores the interweaving of technologies and Cold War
politics involved in the development of inertial guidance (used for guiding Apollo
spacecraft as well as nuclear ballistic missiles. |
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Otto J. Scott, The Creative Ordeal: The Story of
Raytheon (New York: Atheneum, 1974).
Commissioned by the corporation itself, this history of the Raytheon
Corporation provides little detail on the Apollo project, but does provide a sense of the
company's background and involvement in high-tech defense research and development. |
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Christopher C. Kraft, Flight : My Life in Mission
Control, (E.P. Dutton Books, 2001)
Chris Kraft was NASA's Flight Director throughout the Apollo
missions. These are his memoirs. Written in an engaging style, they provide useful
information on the human figures involved in Apollo. |
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Thomas J. Kelly, Moon Lander : How We Developed the Apollo Lunar
Module (Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight Series, 2001)
An in detail account of the design, manufacture and testing of the LEM
by the chief engineer at Grumman, Tom Kelly. This volume explores issues of integration
and quality control in detail. |
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Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1998).
Paul Ceruzzi sets out a general history of the modern computer since the 1940s - and
discusses the pioneering use of ICs in the Apollo Guidance Computer. |
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Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man-Month,
(Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975, 1995)
Brooks' text on software engineering is directly relevant to several of the software
engineering issues faced by that Apollo team. |
site last updated 12-08-2002 by Alexander Brown |
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