Tag: Goddard– Robert

Hard Disk Drive

Disk drives quickly store and retrieve information for computers.

The primary inventor is Reynold “Rey” Johnson. Previously, he invented and sold the technology that reads pencil dots, usually for taking tests, to IBM. Subsequently, he then joined them as a staff engineer. While at IBM he developed the hard disk drive.

The first hard drive, the IBM 350 RAMC, was about 1.5 sqm and weighed over a ton. Moving the disk drive required forklifts. It stored 5MB of memory (.05GB) and leased for $3,200 ($30,000 adjusted to 2019) per month. The only computer the drive worked with was the IBM305, a bemouth that used tubes and was programmed via wire jumpers.

After the hard drive, Johnson worked with IBM and Sony to develop the videocassette.

Eventually, after retirement, he developed the speech tech used in “speak to me books.”

Rockets

In 1914, Goddard patented the first rocket and, in 1926, Goddard fired the first liquid-fueled rocket. Goddard predicted rockets would one day enable space flight, a prediction widely ridiculed as science fiction.

Eventually, in 1929, Oberth fired his modern liquid-fueled rocket. Oberth eventually taught Wernher von Braun, who perfect modern rocketry. In time, both Oberth and von Braun built rockets for the Nazis and may have been Nazi Party members.

Rockets were first used as weapons. No sooner did they perfect the technology than nazi’s launched their V-2 rockets indiscriminately into the United Kingdom towards the end of WWII. Slave labor in Nazi concentration camps built the V-2 rockets. Consequently, after the Nazi surrender, the German rocket engineers – including von Braun – surrendered to the United States. The Soviet Union also captures significant Nazi rocketry technology.

Eventually, on Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first manmade orbital satellite. After several attempts with monkeys (and, some say, people), the Soviets followed up launching Yuri Gagarin into space on April 12, 1961.

In a rocketry program overseen by former Nazi von Braun, the US followed up by blasting American Alan Shepard into Space. von Braun went on to oversee the US space program, supervising the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.