Astronautics Corporation of America

In June 1959, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, brother and sister Nate Zelazo and Norma Paige started the Astronautics Corporation of America as an advanced technology aerospace company.

The company began to seek business with the military, initially working with local universities, and obtained a program from the US Air Force investigating fuel management techniques for space vehicle orbital rendezvous.

Erickson worked for the company for thirteen years until his retirement, investing in the stock and bond market and arranging the purchase of a corporate building on Teutonia Avenue in the city's west side in 1982.

This display program, which combined CRT and optical technologies, resulted in further expansion of Astronautics Engineering, Quality, Reliability, Production and Contract Administration Departments.

Astronautics produced a low-end supercomputer, the ZS-1, designed by James E. Smith of the University of Wisconsin–Madison; one was manufactured, but the model did not sell, and is exhibited at the Rhode Island Computer Museum.