Whether or not rocket science has gotten any easier in the last 50 years or so is debatable, as whilst the actual science behind sending a rocket into space remains the same the process in which it’s calculated has changed dramatically as proven by these photos of NASA in 1961 when working out a mathematical formula on a calculator simply wasn’t an option.
These days if you need to work out how much thrust is needed to send a rocket into space or the amount of fuel it may use on the way up there’s probably an app for that, in fact Google might even be able to help you, but back in 1961 scientists at NASA had to resort to the tried and tested method of working out formulas on a giant blackboards so big that they had to get ladders involved – they couldn’t lay out all of that information on a spreadsheet or PowerPoint document.
That same year they managed to put the first ever US astronaut into space. A fascinating reminder that over the last half a century not only has space travel advanced but the methods in which we use to calculate such impressive feats has also changed as well.
