With NASA's New Horizons spacecraft taking the first detailed pictures of Pluto this year, a Delray Beach man reflects on his involvement with "firsts" in space.
Little did Sid Schildkraut know that tinkering with the inner workings of radios at the age of 13 would lead to the first lunar landing and his name in the Smithsonian Institution. The Abbey Delray resident has had quite the distinguished and varied career path.
Sid worked 35 years for EDO Corporation, a company that designed and manufactured products for defense, intelligence and commercial markets. While there, he was part of the team that ran testing on sensors that were first used to touch the moon during the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969. The company was so proud of this accomplishment that it created banners for its building proclaiming "First on the Moon." In addition, he designed sonar receivers, transducers and other equipment for several foreign countries.
During the television boom of the 1950s, Sid was commissioned by the Electronic Industry Association to co-author a series of textbooks on how to service a television to help educate technicians. At the time, there wasn't much information available, so these books were one of the first to share that knowledge. All these books are now part of the Smithsonian Institution's collection.
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