Ford Motor Co. reveals big role it played in Apollo 11 moon mission

DEARBORN, Mich. (FOX 2) - As we celebrate 50 years since Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Ford Motor Company is revealing how it played a role in the event.

"Most of our associates don't know it, most people don't know it, but Ford was instrumental in putting a man on the moon," said Ted Ryan, Ford's Archives and Heritage Brand Manager. 

Ryan says Ford essentially created Mission Control for NASA in Cape Kennedy and then later, Johnson Space Center. He says Ford spent three years researching what is the best way to present massive amounts of data. 

They decided on a three-pronged attack -- the giant map, the digital blinking lights, which are calls to action, and then the analog data, which would give the mission controllers exact information they needed at that moment.

"It helped bring a man to the moon and return him safely," Ryan said.

Ryan said that the ingenuity that Ford used to get a man to the moon is the same creative kind of out of the box thinking it can apply going forward.

"As we build an electric vehicle fleet, as we build an autonomous business, we can do it all again because we have done it before," Ryan said.

Watch the video above to see FOX 2's Jay Towers inspect all sorts of items from Ford's connection to NASA.