Sewing machines and splashdowns

My Mom had five sewing machines: (1) the Singer/Wheeler-Wilson treadle-operated one she used until she bought her (2) electric Pfaff. She also had (3) a typewriter-sized hand-cranked one which she got for my then-pre-teen sister to use until (4) another electric was procured for my sister. There also was (5) an industrial quality sewing machine.

The industrial one had an electric motor about the size of a large cantaloupe, and a clutch to engage the motor. Mom used that one for heavy duty sewing jobs such as leather, making the awning my Dad had designed, and lending it out to a friend whose father made slip covers for their furniture. There were two back-stories about this electromechanical device: (1) it had been Mom’s grandfather’s, which he used in his tailor shop; and (2) it had been acquired by my grandfather on my Dad’s side.  These two conflicting narratives were equally plausible. My maternal great-grandfather had in fact operated a tailor shop. My paternal grandfather, a scrap metal dealer, had a tendency to acquire old machinery of diverse types; he also had a tailoring background from the old country. During World War II, he suspended his scrap metal business, put his truck up on blocks, and became a supervisor in the military uniforms factory at the old Army Quartermaster Corps compound in Philadelphia. More than forty years later, that factory was still in operation under the Defense Logistics Agency, and my office on the compound was across the driveway from that factory when I was an Analyst on the Competition Advocate’s staff during my career with the DoD.

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The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule splashdown in the Gulf of America on 18 March 2025, which successfully ended the hyper-prolonged mission of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, has gotten the attention of the world. When I watched it live over the Internet, my excitement was comparable to what it had been when I listened to the splashdowns of the Mercury astronauts play over the transistor radios of various friends and acquaintances, and later, watched the NASA missions on television as the public schools I attended made increasing use of that device.

The NASA space programs during the 1960’s provided many teachable moments for not only schoolteachers, but for technologically-minded parents such as my Dad, an electrical engineer. Dear Old Dad explained various phenomena to me in terms of the NASA space missions. One example: I asked Dad why the radio stations in New York or Baltimore, or even Chicago, could be heard better in Philadelphia at night than during the day. Dad explained to me that radio waves broadcast from earth bounce off from the ionosphere layer of the earth’s atmosphere, and the ionosphere is higher above the earth’s surface at night than during the day. Recalling that I had been watching the TV when NASA astronaut Wally Schirra did a television broadcast from outer space (a technological milestone), I then asked Dad how it was possible for the television broadcast signals to penetrate the ionosphere from space; Dad complimented me on the question, and explained that some broadcast frequencies can penetrate the ionosphere, and that broadcasts in FM mode were less susceptible to the ionospheric interferences than AM broadcasts.

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My generation was blissfully naïve as to the politics behind the broadcasts of the NASA space missions. Other than the US rivalry with the Soviet Union in the race to put a man on the moon, most of the practical objectives such as using satellites to facilitate communications could be done without sending humans into space. But the military establishment, seeing the obvious advantages of a satellite-based communications system, wanted funding, and getting that funding necessitated backing from the US populace.

Being more than a half-century beyond grade school, I now know that politics play their part in just about everything. The televised early NASA missions showed technical support personnel wearing shirts emblazoned with the word “McDonnell;” they were contractor employees of the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, and their uniforms were part of a self-promotional scheme by the spacecraft manufacturer.  McDonnell would later merge with the Douglas Aircraft Company to become the McDonnell Douglas Corporation. As was quite apparent to me when I was a Contracting Officer and an Analyst for DoD, McDonnell Douglas, like all major prime military contractors, intentionally conducted what effectively was an advertising campaign as it solicited and performed on its governmental contracts (not without an occasional deviation from propriety).

Political considerations continue to permeate the US space program. There seems to be at least the appearance if not the actuality of a political agenda by the Biden administration in delaying the rescue of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station; the administration made no serious attempts to conceal its preference for the Starliner craft manufactured by the Boeing Company over SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, even though the Starliner proved to be severely problematic and it was the Crew Dragon that ultimately brought Wilmore and Williams back to earth. [Boeing, by the way, merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997.].

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Exposed as I was to my Dad’s views on technology even back in my grade school days, whenever I heard complaints to the effect that America spends so much time and energy on sending people to the moon when there are more pressing needs at home, I appreciated the collateral benefits from the space program. As an example, sending people into outer space (and even unmanned missions such as placing satellites into orbit) requires small motors and light-weight but potent power supplies. These were developed in the course of NASA’s activities. Those same technologies are now used to power wheelchairs for people who have physical mobility issues. Back in my grandparents’ day, the state-of-the-art technology was the cantaloupe-sized electric motor that powered industrial sewing machines. If such a motor is installed on your wheelchair then your mobility range is only as far as the length of your extension cord. Other technological spin-offs from the space program have likewise redounded to the benefit of humanity.

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I have been around too long to believe that altruism played a significant role in Elon Musk’s sending his SpaceX company’s Crew Dragon to rescue Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams; nor am I deluded to think that if and when he successfully insinuates his company’s technologically superior space vehicles as competitors in the space program, he and SpaceX will not have their own occasions to step out of bounds (if they have not done so already).

That said, Musk is an American hero, not only for orchestrating the dramatic rescue of Wilmore and Williams after months of inaction by the Biden administration, but for sending the metamessage to the world that the Trump administration has technologically-advanced resources at its disposal which it will not hesitate to deploy. This is a communiqué America’s enemies – and Israel’s no less – need to receive.