Apollo 11 moon landing faked!

So, now that I have your attention…

On this 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s mission to the Moon and Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the lunar surface (at 10:56 p.m. EDT), here come the conspiracy theorists once again.  Read "Could moon landings have been faked? Some still think so"  Please don’t count me among them.

What I do want to talk about is how the Apollo 11 achievement, which is arguably the greatest technological feat of the Millennium, would not have been possible without the hundreds or even thousands of contributions from the converting industry. 

Stop and think for a moment about all the materials and equipment and components and widgets that were created through extrusion and coating and laminating and surface treating and slitting and sheeting and printing and diecutting and folding/gluing and…you name it…that went into the Saturn V rocket and the Columbia and the Eagle lander and the spacesuits and the food-reconstitution tubes and the freeze-dried ice cream pouches…and the American flag planted into the lunar soil. Pretty amazing when you remember that it was all 40-year-old converting technology, too.

Now, that the Apollo missions are really moving into the history books and the hundreds of Space Shuttle voyages as well will soon be history, here’s something to contemplate. Put on your thinking caps and come up with "The Next Great Converting-Industry Contribution" to manned space flight. Will it be a Martian spacesuit as thin as a fleece jacket? Water-soluble food packaging that can be melted away in a space station’s water-recirculation system? A flexible, touchscreen display using printed electronics?

Send me your ideas at the Comment space below or email them to mspaulding@reedbusiness.com.  I promise to give extensive coverage in a future blog.

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