Same Moon, different machine.  Source: Manan
Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images  After the outstanding series on
NASA missions that ran last month (they got Neil Armstrong!) "In
the Shadow of the Moon", The Discovery Channel starts a new six-
part series next week, called "Moon Machines." The second
episode, which airs Tuesday night (7/8), focuses on the guidance
computer NASA engineers developed and installed aboard both the
Command capsule, and the LEM, the vehicle that actually landed
on the moon. It's based on a book called, Digital Apollo: Human
and Machine in Spaceflight, written by David Mindell, a
professor who specializes in the history of technology at MIT.
As he notes in the book, the relationship between man and
machine is not a new story -- he cites the mythical John Henry,
who won his battle with a steam drill at the cost of his life,
and Charles Lindbergh, who used the word "we" to describe his
partnership with his aircraft. In the 1960s, even as they
incorporated the then exotic technology of integrat