Later, he developed a system of colour television and this formed the basis of the technique used by Nasa to bring live colour TV pictures from the moon.
Professor Kevin Kiernan, the editor of the electronic edition, was inspired by work at Nasa to use advanced image enhancement techniques in unraveling some of the mysteries of the manuscript.
SLM is not the only unusual manufacturing technique being explored by Nasa.
New images of the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, have been captured by Nasa using a new time-lapse photographic technique.
Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said as Nasa provides the scientific community with new instruments and techniques, the elimination of Earth sciences would be "a major setback if not devastating".
But Nasa has high hopes for the new recruit, and techniques being developed by a team on the ground could mean the machine can eventually perform life-saving operations on its team-mates.
Northern Lights captured from space Jump to media player The first 'moving' images of the Northern lights, or Aurora Borealis, as seen from Space have been released by Nasa, after they harnessed a new time-lapse photographic technique.
Nasa Earth Scientist Melissa Dawson explains how she happened on the technique almost by accident, when looking over other material from the ISS.
Similarly, Nasa is planning to launch its Terrestrial Planet Finder in 2018, using techniques similar to Darwin's, while the French are planning their own mission Corot, which is to be put in orbit in 2008.
"The only way we're going to take on these age-old problems is with techniques that weren't available to us before," CEO and former Nasa-engineer Lauren Fletcher said.
