Because satellites and missiles are 70% esoteric electronic devices, firms based solidly in electrical equipment, appliances and electronic know-how were quick to get in.
General Electric Co. (22% of sales in aerospace) got in early with a Government contract to assemble and fire captured German V-25, now has an arm-long list of assignments ranging from Atlas guidance systems to studies of how to live on the moon.
Westinghouse Electric Corp., whose defense projects account for 20% of its sales, brings its nuclear reactor prowess (Nautilus, Seawolf) to use on Nerva, the first atomic rocket, and SNAP, atomic-generated power for satellites.
Radio Corp. of America has been operating in a partial vacuum (inside its radio tubes) for years, so thin-air space work (37% of sales) came naturally. Among its projects: prime contractor on Tiros weather satellites and on NASA's Relay communications satellite system.
Raytheon Co., Massachusetts' biggest employer, is 85% in military work, has switched its radar expertise from air defense to missile defense.
Avco Corp. came into aerospace (60% of sales) "strictly from hunger'' after taking a beating in consumer appliances, is now a big name in nose cones.
Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, once all space work, has diversified so that it is now half auto and aircraft parts. It is prime contractor on the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory.
Because aerospace involves rapid transmission of information over thousands of miles, communications companies, large and small, also fell in naturally.
A. T. & T. parlayed its World War II radar-directed antiaircraft gun control system into prime contracts for the Nike series (Ajax, Hercules, Zeus) of antiaircraft and antimissile rockets. Defense business last year was 27% of sales of A. T. & T.'s manufacturing subsidiary.
International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. is prime contractor for the $70 million communications system at Atlas missile bases.
Microwave Associates, a small company on Boston's famed Route 128, does 70% of its $9,000,000 business in microwave components for aerospace computers and radar. Its new Veractor—a silicon device the size of a spring pea—makes possible reception of signals from 10 million miles out in space.
Collins Radio Co. began as a hamradio producer, now makes deep-space tracking systems for weather satellites.
To analyze the information they collect and to maintain long-range control over their creations, the missile and satellite ' builders were obliged to turn to the makers of business machines and automatic controls.
International Business Machines Corp. had $300 million defense sales last year. Its computers man the SAGE air defense system, calculate missile paths, are going into the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System.
Sperry Rand Corp. does 48% of its business with the Government. Among its projects: prime contractor for the Army's Sergeant surface-to-surface missile.
Burroughs Corp. (25% defense work) built Cape Canaveral's missile guidance computer used in Atlas tests.
Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co. built its first control in 1885—a "damper flapper" for coal-furnace flues. In the space age, 44 of the 54 U.S. satellites have used its guidance controls.