Top Secret

Written by Peter Li-Chang Kuo

Preface
In 1974, when I founded “Cheng-Kuang Precision Industrial Co., Ltd.” by the banks of the Yanshui River (Salt River), Premier Chiang Ching-kuo unexpectedly walked in and asked me, “Tell me in the simplest words, what does ‘precision industry’ do?” I replied, “It means making things very small!” Not long after, the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology visited us and confirmed that precision industry is closely tied to national security. To fully elaborate on the importance of precision industry would take several volumes, but today, I’ll begin by sharing the story of how, in 1966, I helped an American entrepreneur succeed and assisted in launching Apollo 4 into space by producing precision "Eyelets." This story illustrates the lasting impact precision industry can have on the future.

Taiwanese people have always been a great help to the United States! Back in 1966, I helped an American entrepreneur who had crossed many hurdles to start a business in Taiwan win a NASA contract—and further helping the U.S. gain the upper hand in the space race. It feels like just yesterday. I still remember when that American saw the finely crafted "Hadome" I made and told me, “This is top secret, don’t tell anyone!” But the reality is— times change, people change—and nearly six decades have passed in the blink of an eye.

Let’s start from when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite into space in 1957. In response, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in 1958, officially establishing NASA, with the goal of winning the space race.

On January 31, 1958, the United States launched its first artificial satellite, "Explorer 1." The success of this launch demonstrated America's ambition in space exploration. Soon after, the U.S. actively developed various space missions, including manned spacecraft and rocket technology testing, and initiated the "Gemini Program" (1965–1966) as a precursor to the Apollo lunar missions.

Fig 1: Apollo 4 launch

In 1962, when I was 9 years old, I narrowly escaped an assassination attempt to death. From then on, I carefully observed how my father used various hand tools and began honing my craftsmanship. By the time I graduated from Park Elementary School in June 1965, I was already capable of independently making deep-drawing progressive dies, building automatic feeding devices, and assembling automated machinery. Around the same time, my father lost his "Communist-espionage Case" and told me to drop out of school and flee with him to Kaohsiung.

That’s how I founded "Cheng Kuang Metal Works" at No. 16, Chong-Hsing Street, behind the People’s Market in Kaohsiung. During the Lunar New Year of 1966, my father was arrested and jailed, and so I would be able to earn enough money to support my family of nine on my own.

The reason we chose Kaohsiung was mainly due to Minister of Economic Affairs K. T. Li, who had established an Export Processing Zone in Cianzhen District— named "KEPZ." There was a voice sounded that Americans would need my specialized skills through deep-drawing in making fine eyelet. Unfortunately, after searching Kaohsiung for eight months, I couldn’t even find the KEPZ— let alone any Americans. So, every time I visited a hardware store, I would use my tiny "Hadome" as a business card to introduce myself.

But splitting the family between two cities was really inappropriate. So, I packed up everything I had built in Kaohsiung and returned to No. 45, Chong-An Street, North District, Tainan City.

Back in Tainan, I no longer had customers from the People's Market. Fortunately, a group of Japanese-educated PhD, financial experts, and electrical engineers had started a company called "Wan-Long Electric Toy Factory," and I took a job there. The monthly wage was NT$ 500— not bad. After work, I still had time for my own factory’s business— since I could work 20 hours a day, the problem was that there just weren’t enough orders.

Ironically, my Cheng Kuang Metal Works was approaching its first anniversary when the experts’ Wan-Long Electric Toy Factory closed down after only three months. Thankfully, on a certain day in November 1966, just as I was heading out to look for purchasing orders, I pushed open the wooden door— and there stood a giant figure blocking the narrow earthen entrance. It was an American, holding a piece of paper and shouting, “Eyelet, Eyelet!”

In fact,“Eyelet” is the English term, and “Hatome” (ハトメ) is the Japanese term— but they refer to the same thing.

After understanding the American’s request, I told him to come back in two days— I would make a physical sample identical in size to the one on his drawing. I immediately went to Mr. Isi to buy steel and iron sheets on credit, then to a hardware store to get drill bits and files on credit, and finally to Mr. Chen to roll out a brass plate to the exact thickness specified. This clearly demonstrated the high level of mutual support within Taiwan’s supply chain.

Two days later, the American returned. When I handed him the physical sample of “Eyelet,” he was visibly overjoyed— clearly excited, though I didn’t know exactly why.

After taking the sample, he came back and forth with revisions over ten times before finally saying: "OK!" Then, unbelievably, he asked me— a 13-year-old blacksmith— for an English version “Approval Sheet.” This document, in addition to including a technical drawing, needed to explain the following items:

1. Rated voltage and current

2. Electrical characteristics

3. Mechanical characteristics

4. Material properties

5. Surface treatment (Ag-Pl thick film)

6. Terminal solderability

7. Operating temperature range

8. High-voltage resistance

9. Endurance testing (including destructive testing)

Come on! What I made was just a tiny copper component— so small it could hardly be held by hand— simply a piece to be riveted onto a phenolic board. Why would that require an "Approval Sheet"?

But to win the purchasing order, I didn’t hesitate. I worked overnight to build a wooden drafting board, bought a T-square and compass, and drew the required diagrams. The next morning, I rushed to the Electrical Engineering Department of National Cheng Kung University and sought out Professor Yao Jing-Bo. When he saw the section "3) Mechanical characteristics," he immediately called in Professor Ma Cheng-Jiu from the Mechanical Engineering Department for assistance.

Long story short, by early December 1966, I had completed what would later become an essential document in the electronics industry—the Approval Sheet. With it, I secured a contract worth NT$100,000, with NT$90,000 in profit, and became one of the first contributors to a shipment from the newly inaugurated Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone— destined for the United States.

Fig 2: Precision Eyelets made by Li-Chang Kuo (1966–1967)

In 1979, that same American treated me to dinner at the World Trade Center in New York. He told me:

“From 1966 to 1969, you were the only supplier in the world who could meet NASA's standards for precision eyelets!”

He expressed his heartfelt gratitude and said that if he hadn’t met me, he would have gone bankrupt. Just evaluating the drawing in the U.S. would’ve cost tens of thousands of dollars, with each revision costing another several thousand. And of course, producing an "Approval Sheet" wasn’t free either. To develop a fully compliant eyelet, the total cost could easily have exceeded hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars if they could be able to.

I was the only one in the world who worked for him without asking for a cent— until he succeeded.

He concluded:

“Apollo 4 was launched into space because of this.”

To verify his claim, I visited several places—and it turned out, he wasn’t exaggerating.

"Donate the NDART"

In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) announced an ambitious goal: to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. This became the ultimate objective of the United States in the Space Race.

Since manned lunar landing was the pinnacle of the space competition, it involved incredibly complex and precise scientific and engineering technologies. Due to Earth’s gravity, any object attempting to leave Earth and enter space had to reach the so-called "escape velocity"— approximately 11.2 kilometers per second—which requires tremendous energy. Rockets, capable of delivering continuous and powerful thrust, were considered the most effective means to send spacecraft and cargo from Earth’s surface into orbit— and even to the Moon.

The Apollo missions used the "Saturn V rocket," which stood 110 meters tall, weighed over 3,000 tons, and generated 7.6 million pounds of thrust (about 34 million newtons) at launch. In the first 150 seconds of ignition, the energy produced was approximately:

"34 million N × 150 s ≈ 5.1×10⁹ joules," which is equivalent to the explosive energy of “3,500 tons of TNT”— essentially strapping a small nuclear arsenal to a rocket. The vibrations involved were immense and unimaginable.

Inside the spacecraft, a pure oxygen environment was maintained, and all control units had to meet the highest standards of quality. Every electronic component had to comply strictly with NASA’s rigorous specifications, because even the tiniest defect—such as a short circuit— could result in catastrophic failure.

During the mid-1960s, adhesive and material technologies were not yet fully developed. Adhesives used for copper lamination (like phenolic resin) often suffered delamination and issues from thermal expansion and contraction, which made printed circuit board (PCB) copper layers prone to peeling. Additionally, "Plated Through Hole" (PTH) technology was not yet widely available, and achieving reliable connectivity between both sides of a PCB was a significant technical challenge.

The clever NASA scientists, facing the immaturity of PTH technology, came up with an alternative: "Eyelets + Phenolic Board."

This involved riveting brass eyelets into a perforated insulating phenolic board. The eyelet, a tiny metal tube, was inserted into a drilled hole and mechanically crimped from both sides, creating a mechanical and electrical connection between the upper and lower copper layers. Components were then mounted onto this base, forming a functional circuit board— a reliable substitute for PTH.

This innovation provided greater reliability than PTH at the time, especially in environments with high vibration and extreme temperature changes. As a result, NASA began to widely adopt eyelets in its aerospace equipment— such as satellites and Apollo mission control modules— to ensure that connections wouldn’t fail due to thermal expansion or mechanical stress.

At the same time, K. T. Li, then Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affairs, was developing the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) and actively attracting foreign investment from the U.S. The aforementioned American recounted:

“In 1966, I saw an advertisement in a newspaper showing a Taiwanese girl pushing a bicycle with a stack of cash hanging from the handlebars. That image convinced me to bring my entire fortune— $100,000 USD— to Taiwan and establish Transworld Electronics Corporation, applying to set up shop in the KEPZ.”

“Unexpectedly, after six months in Taiwan, I still couldn’t find a supplier capable of producing the eyelet I needed.”

“One day, I passed by a hardware store. I asked my interpreter to stop the car so I could go in and ask the owner. To my surprise, he told me that there was a young boy working at the People's Market who could make them.”

“I rushed from Kaohsiung to Tainan, walked into a narrow alley, and unbelievably, this boy handed me the exact eyelet product I was looking for.”

“What amazed me even more was that this boy managed to help me pass all the requirements and secure a NASA contract.”

Unexpectedly, in January 1967, tragedy struck during a simulation test for Apollo 1— a fire broke out, resulting in the deaths of three astronauts. This devastating incident had a profound impact on the Apollo Program, prompting NASA to further tighten its safety protocols and significantly raise the standards for all components used in the mission.

In addition to the already stringent requirements, the outer and inner diameters of the eyelets now had to meet exact specifications. Previously, the rule was that after riveting, both sides of the eyelet must be uniformly rounded. After the Apollo 1 accident, the standards became even stricter—even under magnification, not a single micro-crack was allowed.

Clearly, the massive procurement of my products in 1967 indicated that they met these rigorous standards— demonstrating exceptional hole tolerance, rivet strength, electrical contact integrity, and thermal resistance. In fact, their quality far surpassed the manufacturing capabilities of many factories in Europe, America, and Japan at the time.

What’s most remarkable is that my entire production relied on just one old, small drill press—everything else depended on my ingenuity and the versatility of my own two hands.

Fig 3: The small drill press used solely by Li-Chang Kuo in 1966–1967

Upon later research and validation, the precision eyelets I supplied were, by every measure, not ordinary industrial products. Rather, they met military-grade and aerospace-level specifications and were used in:

1. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) modules;

2. The Command Module Power Distribution Boards;

3. The S-Band RF Communication Modules / Circuit Switching Modules;

4. The Fuel Cell Power Control Modules;

5. And various other mission-critical components.

Thanks to these high-precision, reliable key components, Apollo 4 was successfully launched on November 9, 1967, showcasing American aerospace capabilities and widening the technological gap with the Soviet Union. This progress ultimately led to Neil Armstrong achieving the lunar landing goal with Apollo 11 on July 21, 1969.

In 1967, the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA jointly established a comprehensive “Part Approval Process,” formalizing it into:

1. MIL-STD (Military Standards);

2. NASA NHB or MSFC-SPEC (NASA System Specifications).

Even subcontracted or third-party resold components were required to include full traceable certifications. If I had been unable to provide a complete "Approval Sheet," the entire batch of components could have been rejected by NASA, or the contract canceled outright.

That is why the said American expressed his deepest gratitude— not only for the technical success but for helping him survive the most critical stage of his company’s journey and NASA’s mission.

Fig 4: Super-fine Eyelet

Example Product No. 09-151
Specifications: Diameter 1.0 mm × Length 3.0 mm, made of silver-plated brass.

Endurance Testing included destructive tests, such as soldering gold-plated copper wires and performing tensile strength tests to determine whether the wire would snap first or the solder joint would fail.

The Approval Sheet, as required by NASA, included nine key technical specifications, each with significant implications:

1. Rated Voltage and Current: 20A / 380VAC; 25A for short durations; supports 500VDC (To avoid overloading, overheating, melting, or short-circuits— space equipment primarily uses DC);

2. Electrical Characteristics: Contact resistance ≤ 10 μΩ — ensures excellent conductivity;

3. Mechanical Strength: Pull strength ≥ 5 kgf (after copper wire soldering, Ensures vibration resistance, especially in high-shock rocket environments);

4. Material Composition: Brass with copper content ≥ 60%; riveted into G-10 or FR-4 aerospace-grade phenolic boards;

5. Surface Treatment: Acid-cleaned brass, silver-plated with coating thickness ≥ 20 μm;

6. Terminal Solderability: Soldering time < 2 seconds at 230°C; wetting angle ≤ 30°; no “cold joints”;

7. Temperature Range: -150°C to +150°C — materials must not deform or crack;

8. High Voltage Resistance: ≤ AC 500V / DC 700V — essential for exposed conductors in vacuum environments to prevent arc discharge;

9. Endurance Test: 100,000 cycles, including thermal cycling, vibration, high voltage, and temperature alternation.

This Approval Sheet, created nearly 60 years ago, was in fact a military and aerospace-grade certification document—the equivalent of today’s AS9102 First Article Inspection or MIL-STD verifications. It was not only used in the Apollo program, but its technical specifications remain applicable to space satellites scheduled for launch in 2027.

Some call it divine intervention—but no one can truly explain how a 13-year-old blacksmith managed to enlist two distinguished university professors and, in just a few days, completed a document of such caliber. For those who wish to enter the high-tech industry, mastering the creation of such documentation is essential.

These documents are of tremendous historical value and could even be eligible for "Space Heritage" certification, granting them higher prestige and industry standing. Though I only provided a "small silver-plated brass component riveted onto a phenolic board," this kind of part plays a critical role in aerospace applications, for the following reasons:

1. Aerospace Missions Allow Zero Margin for Error:

The Apollo program was literally a life-or-death endeavor. A failure of even a microscopic part could doom an entire spacecraft and its crew. NASA required the strictest review processes for all materials and components used—this is what we now refer to as "Mil-Spec" (Military Specifications) or "Space-Grade" certification systems.

2. The Eyelet as a Conduction and Structural Component:

Though small in size, my product had critical roles:

1) Conductive Path: Stable electrical performance for soldered circuits;

2) Structural Mounting: Reliable mechanical strength for mounting components;

3) Insulation Piercing: Installed through phenolic boards with strict electrical insulation requirements.

It wasn't just a tiny rivet—it was the contact point and bridge in electronic systems. In space, these components must endure: "1)Extreme temperatures, 2)Intense vibrations, 3)Vacuum conditions, 4)Electromagnetic interference, 5)High-energy particle radiation."

3. Destructive Testing:

This is a key element in NASA’s and military-grade component validation. The goal is not just to pass, but to understand failure modes—known as:

1) Destructive Mechanical Pull Tests;

2) Solder Joint Reliability Tests: to assess: “(1)Solder joint strength: Ensures joints can withstand extreme mechanical stress, especially rocket vibrations; (2)Copper wire–eyelet interface: If the wire breaks first, the joint is strong. If the joint detaches first, soldering is defective; (3)Solder–plating compatibility: Incomplete bonding can lead to cold joints or brittle fractures.”

3) End-of-life stress analysis: After thermal cycling, vibration, and tensile stress, determine if failure occurs prematurely

Fortunately, I had the support of National Cheng Kung University and two brilliant professors from the northeast, Mainland China, Prof. Yao Jing-Bo and Prof. Ma Cheng-Jiu, who helped me overcome every technical hurdle. Their guidance ensured my product passed NASA's requirement of 5 kgf (50N) pull strength, including identifying failure points and load capacity. That’s why this eyelet wasn’t just the work of a teenage owner— it was a technically sophisticated creation backed by science and scholarship.

More than anything, it was a story of how Taiwanese people helped one another through hardship, welcoming strangers from foreign, and working together to push through the darkest winters and into the bloom of spring.

Epilogue

When all our efforts had finally started bearing fruit, someone whispered in my ear, “That American earns one U.S. dollar, and you only earn one New Taiwan dollar!”

Trying to tempt me into replacing him. But I did no such thing. Instead, I used my knowledge in precision industry to help him upgrade into antenna products and later into consumer electronics. With my support, he succeeded and listed his company, "Avnet Inc.", on the New York Stock Exchange. In the same year, 1974, I established "Cheng-Kuang Precision Industrial Co., Ltd." at No. 61 Chong-Yang Road, Yong-Kang, Tainan, leading the development of Taiwan’s precision industry. Taiwanese people understand boundaries and gratitude—virtues that others could learn from. These experiences working with Americans later enabled me to fully implement the “Rich Taiwan Plan,” using my wife Linda Din’s inventions in e-commerce and contactless, cashless systems to bring Taiwan into the global spotlight in the 21st century. Furthermore, we helped new entrepreneurs around the world earn global income right from their homes.

Fig 5: Li-Chang Kuo created

Taiwan

’s Precision Industry in 1974

Peter Lichang Kuo, the author created Taiwan's Precision Industry in his early years. Peter was a representative of the APEC CEO Summit and an expert in the third sector. He advocated "anti-corruption (AC)/cashless/e-commerce (E-Com)/ICT/IPR/IIA-TES / Micro-Business (MB)…and etc." to win the international bills and regulations.