This invention made transport faster and more comfortable and significantly shortened travel time. The 1940s saw the explosion of the first atomic bomb and the subsequent development of the nuclear power industry. Nuclear energy as well as natural gas, water power, oil and coal are current sources of energy. Scientists try to increase the contribution of wind, tidal, solar and geothermic power. The earliest materials used by humans were wood, bone, horn shell and stone. Metals were rare and difficult to obtain, although forms of bronze and iron were used in 6 000 B.C. and I 000 B.C. The introduction of the blast furnace in the 15th century enabled cast iron to be extracted, but this process remained expensive until charcoal was substituted by coke in 1709. This change ensured a plentiful supply of cheap iron at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Soon new materials were introduced, such as rubber, glass, leather, paper, bricks and porcelain and later, after the mid-1880s, entirely new synthetic materials appeared. First dyes, then plastic and celluloid and still later drugs were synthesized and synthetic fibres were made. This process still continues with the growth of genetic engineering which enabled the production of synthetic insulin and growth hormones. Production process and equipment in the factories also changed as much as power and materials. The lathe (potter's wheel), known in antiquity, was not fully developed until the 18th century when it was used to produce objects of great precision. The first attempts at automation were demonstrated in the 18th century when looms were controlled automatically by punched cards. The first moving assembly line appeared in 1870 in meat-packing factories in Chicago II, USA, and then in the motor industry in 1913. At present, electronic computers control fully automated plants (robotics). Plenty of inventions and discoveries have influenced and changed human life, such as aircraft, radio, television, telephone, X-ray machines, radar, air-cushion vehicles (hovercraft), electric welding, photographs, birth-control methods, test-rube babies, penicillin and vitamin C. Undoubtedly the transistor, integrated circuit (silicon chip) and laser were the three inventions that have had the greatest impact on modern-darn life. Electronic and microelectronic industries, space research and genetic engineering probably represent the branches where progress will continue most rapidly. Space flights represent a special application of modem technology and science.