MIT 150: The Top 50

Number 19: Black box Before World War II, pilots couldn’t figure out where they were without someone’s help. Aviation pioneer Charles “Doc” Draper , who earned three degrees from MIT, insisted against prevailing wisdom that everything a plane needed to fly could be put into a “black box.” Using a complex combination of spinning gyroscopes and sophisticated computer calculations, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory he established created the first “inertial guidance system,” flying from Hanscom Air Force Base to Los Angeles on the provenance of instruments alone. It was critical for airplane flight and for a precise piloting system for ballistic missiles, and it made the Apollo space missions possible.
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Number 19: Black box

Before World War II, pilots couldn’t figure out where they were without someone’s help. Aviation pioneer Charles “Doc” Draper, who earned three degrees from MIT, insisted against prevailing wisdom that everything a plane needed to fly could be put into a “black box.” Using a complex combination of spinning gyroscopes and sophisticated computer calculations, the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory he established created the first “inertial guidance system,” flying from Hanscom Air Force Base to Los Angeles on the provenance of instruments alone. It was critical for airplane flight and for a precise piloting system for ballistic missiles, and it made the Apollo space missions possible.