I have recently watched a few NOVA episodes on the planets. This lead me to consider the changing electronics we have developed for and used in the various space programs. Numerous advances that we now take for granted were developed to improve the likelihood of successful missions.
From the beginning, the space programs had a need for more durable components. Improved materials to mount switches (transistors) on was an early improvement just as silicon transistors replacing vacuum tubes (relatively fragile by nature) made taking electronics to space possible. Then the development of integrated circuits (a single piece of silicon providing multiple transistors in an even more durable package) further advanced the ability of electronics to survive as well as igniting the race to ever smaller components.
Smaller had an amazing benefit; smaller was intrinsically faster, lighter, and required less power to operate thus reducing the need to dissipate heat. An amazing synergy if you think about it. Difficulties in reliably producing IC’s (integrated circuits) were overcome in the process of each leap to smaller devices. Similarly, smaller size allowed the inclusion of more and more transistors in a single component.
A separate series of advancements was leading to the inclusion of ever more complicated and varied components (circuits) in the silicon (nand gates, op-amps, T-bar, etc.). At some point, the complexity of the IC made a sidestep and the result was the microprocessor. The microprocessor evolved in multiple paths resulting in ever more complicated processors bringing us to current processors and System On a Chip (SOC) packages.
Remember those Apollo missions? the combined computer power (speed, computational capacity, memory, storage) of the computers onboard the missions is easily eclipsed by that in a single $30 cell phone, and mission control’s computers are easily eclipsed by most smartphones.
Imagine The difference in quadrupling computer capacity while lowering the weight from a few hundred pounds down to 1 lb while reducing power consumption from a few thousand watts down to less than 100 milli-watts.