Analogue Apollo
Cybernetics and the Space Age
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4389653 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Clieton H Johnson (0000-0002-7476-2601, corresponding author), Christopher Johnson (0000-0002-2972-3072) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 304-326 |
| Publication date | 2008-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Paragraph (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0264-8334 • E-ISSN: 1750-0176 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/e0264833408000291 |
| OpenAlex | W2144383577 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 1 |
This article re-examines some of the principal concepts of cybernetics - control, communication, feedback - and its preoccupation with the 'coupling' of human and machine in an increasingly automated world. Historically, the rise of cybernetics coincides with the so-called Space Age, where the kind of computerized control systems theorized in cybernetics were essential to the guidance and operation of the complex machinery required to place humans and machines in space. Taking the Apollo programme as a paradigmatic case of accelerated technological evolution, the article looks at aspects of the human-machine relationship in Apollo and more specifically at the modes of interface - 'analogue' and 'digital' - which mediated that relationship. Despite a certain humanism of control which posits the human agent as the ultimate instance of perception, decision and action, it is argued that the evolutionary tendency detectable in the Apollo programme is towards the progressive marginalization, or 'redundancy', of the human agent
Apollo · Cognitive science · Computer security · Cybernetics · Epistemology · Humanism · Perception · Computer Science · Philosophy · Psychology · Space exploration and regulation · Space Exploration and Technology · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Artificial Intelligence · Ecology
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,27 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2020 (10) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |