What Happens When Scientists Work With Unexpected Experts

Опубликовано 27 августа 2025, 16:11

In the 1960s, NASA’s engineers were building the Apollo spacecraft. But they ran into a major problem that almost prevented them from getting to the moon. To solve it, they brought in some unexpected help: expert weavers.

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Core Rope Memory: a type of read-only memory (ROM) that was used in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC).
- Transdisciplinary: an approach that integrates knowledge and perspectives from various disciplines and sectors, including non-academic stakeholders, to address complex real-world problems.

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CREDITS
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Cameron Duke | Script Writer & Narrator
David Goldenberg | Director
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

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OUR STAFF
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Lizah van der Aart • Sarah Berman • Cameron Duke
Arcadi Garcia i Rius • David Goldenberg • Melissa Hayes
Henry Reich • Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida

OTHER CREDITS
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Examples of lidar snapshot returns. Figure by Falk Feddersen, et. al. doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2023.40

Needleworker weaving core rope memory. Raytheon Public Relations, courtesy of the collection of David Meerman Scott.

Core rope memory from the Apollo Guidance Computer. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...

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REFERENCES
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Apollo Press Kit. archive.computerhistory.org/re...

Core Memory Weavers and Navajo Women Made the Apollo Missions Possible. 18 Feb. 2022, sciencenews.org/article/core-m...

“From Dairy Cultures to Dazzling Technology | Harvard Medical School.” Hms.harvard.edu, 20 Oct. 2016, hms.harvard.edu/news/dairy-cultures-dazzling-technology.

Ren, Jingjing, et al. “Dynamics and Characteristics of Interdisciplinary Research in Scientific Breakthroughs: Case Studies of Nobel-Winning Research in the Past 120 Years.” Scientometrics, vol. 128, no. 8, 22 June 2023, pp. 4383–4419, doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-047...

Romano, Noemi, et al. “Linguistic Traits as Heritable Units? Spatial Bayesian Clustering Reveals Swiss German Dialect Regions.” Journal of Linguistic Geography, vol. 10, no. 1, Apr. 2022, pp. 11–22, doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2021.12

Seeman, Jeffrey Ira, and Guillermo Restrepo. “The Mutation of the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry” into the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences”: Several Decades of Transparent and Opaque Evidence of Change within the Nobel Prize Program.” Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 4 Dec. 2019, doi.org/10.1002/anie.201906266

Sullivan, Bill. “Gene’s Addiction, or Why Ozzy Osbourne Is Still Alive.” Discover Magazine, discovermagazine.com/health/ge...

Uzzi, B., et al. “Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact.” Science, vol. 342, no. 6157, 24 Oct. 2013, pp. 468–472, doi.org/10.1126/science.124047...