WEBVTT - The PerkinElmer Story: Part Two 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.000 Let's get in test with technology with tex stuff from 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.920 stuff dot com. Hey there be one, and welcome to 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:18.599 tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strick. And when last we left you, 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.520 there were two companies that were rising in prominence in 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.160 various forms of instrumentation, but had as of yet absolutely 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:28.440 nothing to do with one another. Yes, they were kind 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.240 of like those that those awkward boys and girls at 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.400 the high school dance standing as far apart from each 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:36.720 other in the dance floor as they possibly could be. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.919 They were science ships passing in the night. Yes. So 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:44.360 we had Perkin Elmer, known for creating scientific instrumentation with 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.479 lots of syllables that make me fall over myself. And 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:49.760 then we have E. G and G, a group of 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.640 M I T. Brainy acts who were really focused on 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.960 high speed photography and other instrumentation. So when last we 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.840 left off, we were just coming up on nineteen sixty 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.800 or when E. G and G really gets involved in 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.160 the space race. That's right, um. They produced the light 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.160 beacons that were launched into space on board the Gemini spacecraft, 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.240 or the Gemini spacecraft if you're one of those folks 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.959 from NASA who insisted on pronouncing it that way. I've 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.039 never heard that. That's amazing. You have to watch the 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.319 old videos. I I say jim and I I refused 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.319 to say jiminy other than the fact that if you 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:24.440 watch those old videos it's too many. You mean like 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.480 the cricket. Uh. Yeah. So that same year, e G 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.440 n G also conducts seismic mapping operations in the English 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.200 Channel as part of a project to create an underwater 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.000 tunnel connecting England to France. This is nineteen sixty four. 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.440 We wouldn't actually see that underwater tunnel for many, many, 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.640 many years, decades in fact, but it's really exciting to 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.520 me that I had no idea that dated back that far. 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.760 So that's really cool. In nineteen sixty five, e g 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.520 MNG lists as a public company on the Stock Exchange. 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:59.040 They had actually already begun offering stock options common stock 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.440 options over a counter back in nineteen sixty for fourteen 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.520 dollars and fifty cents a share over the counterstock options. 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.320 I didn't even know, yes, because they were technically public, 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.040 but they weren't publicly listed on a stock exchange, so 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.680 it was kind of an interesting example there. In nineteen 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:20.079 sixty six, they created e G n G International Incorporated, 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.480 which was a subsidiary of the overall company, and this 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.240 was specifically to encompass all their ocean of graphic products 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:29.880 and services. We talked in the last episode about how 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.400 they had created underwater cameras and light sources and worked 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.400 with Zack Costa. Yeah, that was really pretty cool. In 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.280 that same year, the Atomic Energy commissioned the a c 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.760 A sponsored construction of a technical services building in Nevada, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:48.080 specifically for E G and G. Use Wow. This division, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.720 sometimes known as Albuquerque Operations, would eventually encompass all kinds 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.440 of military focused projects, including like landmine detection and ground 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.760 air communications e MP simulation, uh, and a lot of 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.960 whipment shielding projects for rugged environments. Yeah. I think e 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.799 MP simulations mean that you need some good shielding there. 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.640 It's pretty interesting stuff that that that, you know, thinking 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.720 about it, this started as a company that was all 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.480 about high speed photography and now they're looking into EMP 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.880 simulations for the military. In fact, their relationship with the government. 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.720 E G and G's relationship with the government would mean that, uh, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.560 it would get pretty complicated. You had entire divisions of 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.600 the company that we're working in a more commercial aspect, 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.040 and a large portion of the company that was working 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:36.600 almost exclusively under government contract. That gets pretty complex later 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.280 on too. Nineteen sixty seven, E G. M G goes 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:44.080 on an acquisition rampage. It's like if you've ever seen 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.160 one of those old game shows where you got to 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.040 go on a shopping spree at the end of it 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.200 and just run down the aisles and just shove stuff, 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.800 And yeah, that's kind of how I feel. E G 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.480 and G win at this point. Yeah, because things weren't 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.440 quite complicated enough, they needed to add all whole bunch 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:02.920 of different corporations. Yeah, there were so many that we 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.800 even we started to list them and then realize that 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.640 this is just a list of names that aren't going 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.920 to mean much to anyone who hasn't worked for one 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.840 of those companies, because most of them are not companies 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.320 that that most of us know just easily by name. 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.920 And we ended up cutting the wall out because Yeah, Furthermore, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.800 I mean, this was seven and this would continue going 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.480 on for the next several years. So nineteen sixty eight, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.440 E G and G successfully test the Phoebus to A, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:34.280 which was a nuclear reactor for space propulsion. That's pretty cool, uh, 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.839 And in nineteen sixty nine, they contribute several electronic components 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.400 to the Apollo program, which was also pronounced Apollo, So 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.720 they didn't do anything fun with Ellen. It was not 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.039 the Jimini jim anything. That's good. They contributed to the 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.440 first successful use of nuclear explosives to recover deeply buried 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.239 natural gas. That's cool. Also in that year, Apollo eleven 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:58.960 landed on the Moon and Neil Armstrong's helmet would boast 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.520 a transparent goal protective coding that was designed by Perkin Elmer. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:05.760 So now we're seeing E. G and G and Perkin 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.440 Elmer kind of sort of working together but not knowingly 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.000 doing so, they're all working specifically for NASSA. But uh, 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:17.240 but you know, just just just hints of things to come. Uh. 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.560 Nineteen seventy three, E G and G supports Antarctic scientific 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:26.640 research and also contributes instrumentation to the Pioneer ten space probe. 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.680 Also that year, Perkin Elmer would acquire a company called 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.119 inter Data, which was an early computer company, and thus 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.279 begin getting into digitized components and controllers, which would overall 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.840 make their equipment easier for people to use with minimal training. Yep. 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.479 And in nineteen seventy six, E G and G acquires Rheticon, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.200 which was a solid state imaging and integrated circuit production company. 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.160 Uh so, you know, you can see where E. G 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.400 and G is starting to look into the components that 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.760 make up today's digital cameras, including charge coupled devices c 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.040 c ds. That a sensor that's found in many, uh 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.440 though not all digital cameras. And uh, yeah, there was 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.159 there's an interesting note here about some more space stuff, right, yeah, 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.920 that you're Perkin Elmer. One of their mass spectrometers went interplanetary. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:14.839 It was one of the instruments that went to Mars 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:19.480 with the with the Viking Lander. That's so freaking awesome. 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.359 Ninety seven. Okay, here's the big one, guys. This is 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.919 going to take up a large part of our episode 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.680 because this is the the big blunder really that that 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.360 comes in here. This is when Perkin Elmer wins a 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.640 contract to work on components for the Hubble space telescope 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.159 way back in nineteen seventy seven. If you happen to 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.680 know your history of the Hubble space telescope, it might 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.000 surprise you to know that it all begins back in 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.640 the late seventies because it wouldn't launch until Yeah. So 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.279 now Perkin Elmer's focus ha ha was on the optical 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.039 telescope assembly. There's a note in here that the pun 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.160 is not intended, and I think you're lying. It's totally intended. Now. 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.159 It wasn't intended when I was writing it, but then 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.960 I was like, I'm totally intending it. Intention has changed. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.040 But yes, their their focus was on the optical telescope 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.480 assembly and the fine guidance system. These are two separate 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.960 systems that they were working on. And so here's the 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.760 highlights of what the Hubble Space Telescope was all about 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.000 and what the problem was. So the purpose of the 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.080 Hubble Space Telescope was to take astronomical measurements and observations 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.240 outside of the Earth's atmosphere, right, because there's a lot 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.720 of of of stuff, including air and clouds and moisture 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.000 and all sorts of other other just things that get 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:34.800 in the way of your instruments when you're trying to 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.600 look at really distant stars. And it's also all that 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.880 stuff can act as a filter and block certain types 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:42.720 of radiation that you might want to be able to 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.600 study things like X rays and gamma rays. Now we're 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.080 glad that our atmosphere does this, because life would not 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.840 really be possible if we didn't have that protective layer. Right, 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.240 it's excellent, but it does mean that making observations from 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.520 the ground is very tricky. So what do you do, Well, 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.000 why not put a telescope outside the atmosphere in Earth orbit. 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:06.360 That's exactly the reason that NASA decided to to pursue 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.920 this idea, the Hubble Space Telescope. So here's how it works. 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.360 In general, it uses mirrors to direct light to one 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.720 or more of several scientific instruments that are contained within 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.360 the telescope, and then those instruments analyze the light that 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.880 comes in. So those mirrors are incredibly important, right. They 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.800 have to have a very specific way of focusing that 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.240 light so it hits the sensors just right. That the 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.360 mirror shape and the electronics that are used to guide 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.640 them are very critical. Yeah, because if it's not focusing 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.000 the light, then you're not getting really good images. So 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.280 Perk and Elmer worked on the mirrors for the optical 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.960 telescope assembly, and they had to build the structure for 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.720 it and the supporting systems, then assemble all of them 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.040 and to test it before it was sent into space. 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.880 It's the testing part that met with some criticisms, I 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.360 would say. So. The telescope's launch met with several delays. 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:00.840 All right. The original date was October launch, but that 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.120 did not happen. No, in January of six for those 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.520 of us who are old enough to remember, we had 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.280 the horrible tragedy of the Challenger disaster, and that set 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.839 back the entire space industry by several months, right right, 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.920 All of NASSO basically bent itself to figuring out why 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.160 this tragedy had happened and how it can be prevented 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:23.640 in the future exactly. So then, uh, it gets pushed 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.839 back over and over again. It wouldn't actually launch until April, 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.960 and once it was an orbit, it immediately started taking pictures, 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.440 whereupon everyone realized something was not right. Yeah, they weren't 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.720 as crisp as they needed to be. They weren't. There 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.520 was this notion that the images they would get back 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.120 from the hubble we're going to be a certain level 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.559 of clarity and crispness. And they were not nearly crisp enough. 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.840 I mean, they weren't awful, but they were blurry, and 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.440 there was some confusion at first as to why that was, 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.959 and eventually they determined that the problem was Hubble's primary mirror, 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.160 which had been pollished over the course of an entire years. 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.400 How big and delicate the thing is, it had something 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.440 called a spherical aberration. It means that that the curve 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.160 on it was was very slightly off. Yeah, like we're 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.200 talking about the thickness the similar larity of a thickness 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.920 of one of a sheet of paper. So if you 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:21.240 look at that and you were to take a sheet 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.160 of paper, divide it fifty times equally, one of those 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.280 would be the difference in curvature that it was versus 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.439 what it was supposed to be. But but even that 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.400 small difference meant that the light bouncing off of it 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.720 was being focused on a very slightly different point than 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:37.960 it was supposed to be, right, So that meant that 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.720 the the center, the light that was hitting the center 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.280 was hitting one part of the sensor, and the light 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:45.280 that was hitting the edges of the mirror was hitting 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.400 a slightly different focal point. So no matter why however 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.240 you align the mirror, you were never going to get 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.280 the perfect image because the center and the edges were 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.880 out of alignment of the mirror itself, and so how 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.280 do you fix this? Well, they decided to use what 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.840 they called the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, which 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:07.840 I'm sure they named it just so they could get 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:12.760 the acronym co star. So CO star was a series 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.839 of ten smaller mirrors that intercepted the reflected light from 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.520 the primary mirror and then corrected it for that spherical aberration. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.480 So they had to go up there and then do 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.040 some very delicate surgery on the Hubble Space telescope in orbit. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.400 All right, This all took place in in December of 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:37.240 nine three UM. The installation required eleven months of training 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.760 and five days of spacewalks once they actually got up there. Yeah, 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.600 so we're talking about it because you know, you're in 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.679 those giants space suits, right, you have very little mobility, 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.920 you don't have a lot of flexibility. It's it's tough. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:51.640 There's a limited period of time that you can be 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.560 out there. It's incredibly high risk kind of operation and 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:00.560 also just one that's just monumentally difficult. But they were 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:02.679 able to do it. They were able to make this replacement. Now, 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.440 it didn't come cheaply. The estimated costs were somewhere in 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:10.120 the round of eighty six million dollars. It's a big 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.000 mistake to have to fix. And then subsequent visits to 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.360 the hubble involved replacing some of the old instrumentation on 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.720 there with new versions of it that could by themselves 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.679 account for that spherical aberration, meaning that co star eventually 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.439 became obsolete because the instruments could correct for the error 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:29.520 all on their own. They didn't need that extra set 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.480 of mirrors. So that's kind of cool and in another 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.280 prick and Elmer system would need a replacement. Uh you, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.840 I remember I mentioned that they had the fine guidance system. 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.160 That was the second part of the systems they worked on. 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:49.320 So fine guidance system was all about letting the hubble 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.800 remained very stable while taking measurements and to very finely 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.960 tune the telescope's directions that you're pointing exactly what you 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.400 want to point at. They had to replace one of 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.640 the three sensors, which a huge deal because that is 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.120 you know, it's wear and tear like eventually, so and 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.960 it wasn't like that was a faulty system, but this 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.440 gave Perkin Elmer a pretty black eye at least in 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.360 the space industry for a little while. Uh, and became 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.439 kind of the stuff of legend in in the NASA chronicles. 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.120 And it was a mistake that no one knew about 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.440 until after the Hubble Space Telescope was in orbit, which 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.680 was decades after Perkin Elmer had gotten the contract. Sure, 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.920 but you know, anytime you've got a near billion dollar mistake, 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.320 that's a government contract. That's not that's not looking great. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.160 It's pretty rough. So we've got a lot more to 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.920 say here. But yeah, yeah, don't worry. It's if we 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.160 don't have it's not sad ending books. We're gonna have 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.520 a happy ending, we promise. But we're gonna take a 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.400 quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright, so we're back, 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.599 and now that we've got the Hubble hubbub out of 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.480 the way, uh, we're gonna go back to nineteens sent eight. 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:02.280 So we took a little bit of a diversion in 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:03.920 order to cover all of Hubble. I thought it would 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.720 have been too confusing to actually intersperse Hubble with the 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.240 rest of this. It would admit a big mess. But 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.240 N E. G and G. Remember them, that's the other 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.040 company we had been talking about They joined the Department 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.839 of Energy in Morgantown, West Virginia, in order to look 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:21.840 at fossil fuel and alternative energy research, and that following years, 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.240 in nineteen seventy nine, E G and G would establish 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.200 a new company called E. G and G Hydro Incorporated, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.880 to establish hydro electric power sources in the northeastern United States. Meanwhile, 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.080 back in ninety eight, while we're time hopping around, UM, 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.520 some E G G monitoring equipment was used aboard aircraft 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.680 measuring the radiation levels at Three Mile Island. Yeah, so 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.960 that was the nuclear power facility in the United States 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:48.440 that accidentally released radioactive coolant in the form of steam, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:50.840 and so they needed to have ways of measuring the 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.360 radiation without putting people in harm's way. Uh. It's interesting 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.600 to me again just to see how far from the 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.040 origin of eggs. Uh. You know, per this, we've come 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.760 from high speed photography to Three Mile Islands and fossil 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.400 fuels and alternative energy. That's kind of interesting. Nineteen eighty 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:12.160 they also do something else with extreme photography. We're talking 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.480 about setting up cameras around Mount St. Helen's, which erupted 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:19.520 that year. Uh. An enormous eruption that that was, uh, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.240 you know, read your history books for that, because it 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.800 was I remember living through uh the news reports on that, 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.120 and it was always really dramatic. So they set up 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.200 cameras to help the U. S. Government kind of keep 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.360 an eye on what was going on, again, trying to 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:37.760 do so without putting people in harm's way. Two NASA 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.240 awards E G and G a contract to provide base 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.440 operations support at Kennedy Space Center. Obviously a big contract there. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.520 And in nineteen eighty five and E. G and G 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.560 scientists actually got to join the Space Shuttle crew for 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.960 a mission. It was Mission fifty one b slash Space 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:58.200 Lab three in order to study crystal growth in micro gravity. 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.400 And I just wonder, like, how cool is it for 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.560 you to say that you worked at a company where 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.080 one of your co workers got to go out into 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:09.320 space to do work. That's that's pretty cool. We can't 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.680 say that, No, we can't. Uh, one of our former 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.760 co workers went on a parabolic flight and got to 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:20.520 have um um uh you know, the the simulated weightlessness. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.200 It's about as close as I think we've gotten, but 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:27.080 it's still pretty neat. So N nine E G and G. 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.600 Is awarded contracts to support the Department of Energies super 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:35.560 conducting super collider project in Texas UM, which you know, 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:40.160 super colliders are always awesome. Even when those projects don't 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:45.800 ultimately finish, it's still nifty. In nineties, some of their 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.560 components would play an integral role in the Department of 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.760 Defenses global positioning satellites. Yeah, so we're talking super high 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.960 tech and in it was a big, big year. So 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:02.120 Perkin Elmer merged with a company called Applied Biosystems, which 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.240 was founded by two Hewitt Packard employees, and that company 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.040 designed and manufactured scientific instruments, the first one being a 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:16.080 protein sequencer. In October of n Perkin Elmer agreed, along 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.879 with Hughes Aircraft, to pay a twenty five million dollar 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.320 fine to head off a government lawsuit regarding that Hubble 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.040 mistake you talked about. Perkin Elmer's specific share of that 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.920 would be fifteen million dollars, which, when you consider that 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.320 the the price of the or the cost of the 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.800 error was much higher than that, I guess they were 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:42.040 getting off relatively easy. Yeah. I have no doubt whatsoever 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.000 that the people at Perkin Elmer were trying very hard 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.480 to make a good product just based upon the company's history. 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.120 But it also I mean, they were under a lot 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.159 of criticism saying that after all this time, when all 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.600 that testing, you would think that that aberration would have 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.199 revealed itself. And some people alleged that there were at 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.720 least folks at Perkin Elmer who were aware of the 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.639 problem but allowed it to go on anyway. Yeah, So 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:08.920 whether that's true or not, I don't know, but that 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.159 was certainly in the allegations. Also, E G. And G 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.960 got into the micro machining game in a partnership with 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.520 the Institute of Microelectronics, National University of Singapore, so building 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.720 lots of teeny tiny machine parts at this point in 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.720 was another big year. Uh So that year Perkin Elmer 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:32.000 reported revenues of more than one billion dollars. So they're 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.320 not doing too bad for themselves despite all of this. 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.000 Huw about how about that that fifteen million dollar uh 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:42.160 fine might not seem so uh so monumental in comparison 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.480 to a one billion dollar revenue. You never want to 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.520 find obviously, but um and and a lot of that 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.400 was coming from that from that life Life Sciences division 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.600 that they had just recently m. Yeah, so life sciences 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.159 was becoming a really big part of Perkin Elmer's portfolio. 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.600 I mean before they were really in chemistry in general 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.160 and inorganic chemistry in particular. And yeah, so now we've 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.800 we're seeing them branch out. Meanwhile, E, G and G 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:14.320 reorganizes into five operating segments, uh, and then almost immediately 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.760 discontinues one of those five. They had a Department of 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.080 Energy Support division, but with all of that stuff that 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.479 we've been talking about for the past couple of decades, right, 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.479 all the alternative energy stuff, all that. But what happened 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.520 was they had made a bid on a particular contract, 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.760 it didn't work out, and the company ultimately decided that 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.080 it made more sense to just fold the division than 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.720 to continue trying to bid for these contracts. They still 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:42.639 got government contracts in other ways, but not in energy anymore. Uh. 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.400 And then also something big happened just in world news, right, 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.760 that was that that underwater tunnel between England and France, yep, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.560 the Chunnel, the Channel. I once had the opportunity to 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.680 go on a trip underneath the channel, and I didn't 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.600 get a chance to take it. But this is really 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.119 cool because you know, G and G was the company 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.960 that did all that seismic mapping of the English Channel 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:08.399 to try and study the possibility of having this underwater tunnel. 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.239 So this is we're seeing it start to pay off 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.880 decade later. Uh and in nine, E G MNG one 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.920 government contracts to build advanced X ray and explosives detection 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.399 systems for locations ranging from the Manchester Airport at the 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.080 in the United Kingdom to federal courthouses throughout the United States. 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:31.919 So again really branching out, nineteen, the non governmental division 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.680 of E G MNG purchases the Analytical Instruments division of 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.720 Perkin Elmer for four and fifty two million dollars. Yeah, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:41.920 so now they change the name or this is why 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:43.840 we've been talking about E G and G and Perkin 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.200 Elmer for two episodes. You know, you've been waiting to 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.119 find out how are these two companies involved, apart from 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.840 the fact that they occasionally worked on projects that came 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.639 together in the form of the Apollo program. It's because 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:59.240 the year in part of E G m G buys 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.440 part of Perkin Elmer, and the new company is called 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.520 Perkin Elmer, except it doesn't have a dash in it. Yeah, 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.359 we probably should have mentioned that Perkin Elmer previously had 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.399 a dash between Perkin and Elmer. Yes, imagine every single 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.879 time that we have said the word Perkin Elmer previously 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.280 in these two episodes, that we were saying Perkin Elmer 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.240 but with a dash. Yeah, now we're saying Perkin Elmer 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.480 with no dash, which obviously saved the company millions of 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.960 dollars by eliminating that dash. Um. But now, seriously, they 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:30.680 became Perkin Elmer. So what happened to the rest of 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:33.359 the Perkin Elmer company. You know, only part of it 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.200 was purchased by E. G and G. Right, the old 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:41.120 company became PE Corporation, which was focused on that life 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.360 sciences and biotechnology kind of stuff. Yeah, and also on genomics. 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.720 So in two thousand, PE Corporation changes its name to 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.840 apple Era, which was a kind of a portmanteau of 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.879 Applied and Selera, which were parts of other companies they 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.760 had acquired previously. Yes, and if you happen to listen 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.159 to you forward thinking, you will know that Celera is 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.360 a genetics and genomics company that in fact has very 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.919 little to do with Selary, despite what it sounds like. Right, 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:10.800 So we finally have this point now where we've got 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.159 we've got Perkin Elmer. Uh, there was a brief time 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.800 where Perkin Elmer and PE Corporation made it really really confusing. 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.200 And plus you had you know, the the governmental parts 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:22.200 of E G and G that still exists as well. 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.800