NASA’s Lunar Rover with GM designed mobility systems and components. Photo from wikipedia.org

General Motors has pioneered a lot of automotive guidance systems including the latest generation of drive-by-wire technology. Many people do not realize that General Motors’ contribution to the Apollo guidance system was instrumental in getting NASA to the moon.

The challenges were beyond anything that auto engineers had ever dealt with previously. To begin with, the Apollo ship would be traveling at a speed of 3,400 miles an hour. The command module was going to travel 240,000 miles away and land on a tiny target with precision.

Once the ship landed on the moon, the temperature range fluctuates from -250 degrees Fahrenheit to +250 degrees Fahrenheit everyday. No automotive engineers had ever dealt with these types of challenges when designing guidance systems, let alone have to deal with gravitational pull that is one-sixth that of the earth.

The Apollo 15 CSM with the GM designed guidance systems. Photo from wikipedia.org

General Motors began working with NASA on 8 May, 1962 when NASA selected AC Spark Plug Division of the General Motor Corporation as a contractor to fabrication of the inertial, gyroscope-stabilized platform of the Apollo spacecraft. GM went on to develop the inertial guidance and navigation systems for the entire Apollo moon program and was also responsible for all mobility systems and components of the Lunar Roving Vehicle that the Apollo 15 astronauts first drove on the moon in 1971.

The system created by GM for the Apollo program was the first inertial guidance form of navigation to rely on no signals, no familiar landmarks, no stars, or planets.

Without General Motors engineers, NASA might not have put a man on the moon. Photo from wikipedia.org

NASA required the system to be totally self-reliant once in space and then behind the moon, when the space craft was out of touch with NASA’s Mission Control Center.

The GM AC Electronics team had built the guidance system to the highest standards of precision, accuracy, and reliability that had ever been seen at that time.

Its delicate instruments were assembled in dust-free, temperature and humidity-controlled environments and its components were machined to specifications measured in millionths of an inch.

That’s something to think about the next time you get behind the wheel.