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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: GO, NO GO
Message-ID: <10855@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 20-May-85 17:03:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.10855
Posted: Mon May 20 17:03:43 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 21-May-85 04:59:10 EDT
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>> >	BTW, anyone want to give a history on "no go", which seems to be
>> >orphaned in this world of the Space Age?
>> ... decision points were known as "GO, NO GO"
>> points.  I think it may have come from some text on computer algorithms,
>> but I'm not sure, it could also be from the space agency.
>I suspect it's nothing so high-tech as that: suppose you are making
>mechanical parts with a tolerance range.

GO/NO-GO gauges are standard tools in gunsmithing, to check the headspacing of 
rifle chambers; I've seen references to such gauges in texts from the WW I
era and earlier. I suspect this was NOT the origin of the term, but that it
was borrowed from then-standard machinists' terminology. So I'd put the origin
of the term somewhere prior to 1900. Maybe you can find an old engineering
reference work that will cite such usage?