Posted by
michael
on from the closeups-of-the-sound-stage dept.
GoneGaryT writes "Wow! NASA has pulled another set of photographs, this time of Apollo 11's trip, out of the freezer and digitized them. They are glorious. I'm just checking out the first ever 'Earthrise' sequence and they are beautiful." I'll cherry-pick a few for you: 1, 2, 3.
"So why aren't they in the Apollo pictures? Pretend for a moment you are an astronaut on the surface of the Moon. You want to take a picture of your fellow space traveler. The Sun is low off the horizon, since all the lunar landings were done at local morning. How do you set your camera? The lunar landscape is brightly lit by the Sun, of course, and your friend is wearing a white spacesuit also brilliantly lit by the Sun. To take a picture of a bright object with a bright background, you need to set the exposure time to be fast, and close down the aperture setting too; that's like the pupil in your eye constricting to let less light in when you walk outside on a sunny day.
So the picture you take is set for bright objects. Stars are faint objects! In the fast exposure, they simply do not have time to register on the film. It has nothing to do with the sky being black or the lack of air, it's just a matter of exposure time. If you were to go outside here on Earth on the darkest night imaginable and take a picture with the exact same camera settings the astronauts used, you won't see any stars! "
Yeesh.
-aiabx
-- Just this guy, you know?
Pictures 1,2,3 mirrored
by
tcopeland
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Buzz's attitude...Neil's professionalism
by
droopus
·
· Score: 4, Informative
With all the hoax talk, I thought I'd mention something actually concerning the missions.
I'm a bit of a 60's/70's space nut. I read all the books recently published (Gene Kranz's "Failure is not an Option", Chris Kraft's "Flight" and Gene Cernan's "Last Man on the Moon" are all incredible) and think the boxed "From the Earth to the Moon" DVD set might be the best thing HBO ever did.
Anyway.
Did you notice there are no (or very, very few) camera shots of Neil, but loads of Buzz? That's because Buzz was a bit of a PITA about the mission. He whined for months about not being the first out of the LEM, even after Deke Slayton told him the mission schedule. He tried to take it higher, using his deep religious feelings with politicians to try and be the first man out, but failed.
He did bring along a tiny Communion set and did indeed take Communion just after landing. But he was still pissed, and this was reflected in his refusal to use his camera much, if at all. The only shots of Neil were frame grabs off the LEM mounted 16mm cam.
Neil however, took loads of pics of Buzz, using the belly mounted Hasselblads they both had. So, Buzz became immortalized because there were simply more photos of him...saluting the flag, that classic closeup, etc.
Interesting that the attitudes of the astronauts weren't discussed much till decades later, NASA wishing to preserve the "rock star" image of the men.
I highly recommend reading at least one of the above books, probably this one which has a special if you buy it with Flight, Kraft's great book.
Both show just how amazing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were, and just how analog their equipment was.
Sadly the books will also give you a clue why a program like Apollo will never happen again in America, unless something radically changes.
-- "The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Hoax would have required Soviet cooperation
by
soldeed
·
· Score: 4, Informative
OK all you conspiracy advocates, if the moon landings were faked, then explain to me why would the soviets have let us get away with it? They had deep space tracking capability, and the glaring lack of actual spacecraft going to the moon beaming back telemetry data and voice comm would have been a dead giveaway! I grew up in the sixties, and on launch mornings the pre launch broadcasts usually included a shot of the Soviet 'fishing' trawlers hanging off the coast observing the proceedings. The spacecraft could be tracked with radar all the way to, around, and back from the moon. They sent that Luna mission to try to return samples and steal our thunder, (which we were able to track) but crashed instead. After the failure of their own manned lunar program The Soviets would not have tried such a foolish stunt themselves because they knew they would'nt have been able to fool anyone, and neither would we! To this day, no one in the soviet government or space program, has ever made any suggestion that we did'nt actually go to the moon.
Re:Why the Hell not?
by
dangermouse
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Actually it would be more accurate to say that American rocketry and the American space program was kick started by imported Germans.
I'm not saying that the United States wouldn't have eventually built a decent space program without von Braun and his team. But to say that they didn't contribute much simply because we would have gotten there eventually without them is absurd for two reasons: 1) they actually got us there, and 2) it was the Germans' use of rockets during WWII that made the US actually want to develop rocketry. The US was more or less happily ignoring Goddard til the V-2s started hitting Britain.
I have in my notes from Dr. John Krige's "History of Rocketry" course at Georgia Tech the following text of a telegram sent immediately from Germany to Washington upon the debriefing of the captured von Braun and his personnel (emphasis mine):
HAVE IN CUSTODY OVER 400 TOP RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PERSONNEL FROM PEENEMUNDE. DEVELOPED THE V-2.
THE THINKING OF THE SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS OF THIS GROUP 25 YRS AHEAD OF US. RECOMMEND 100 OF THE VERY BEST MEN OF THIS RESEARCH ORGANIZATION BE EVACUATED TO US IMMEDIATELY.
And the guy was right. It was a hell of a "kick start" the Germans gave us.
Slashdot Mirror
Please go to http://www.badastronomy.com/ before you waste our time and bandwidth with your moon-hoax crap.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
...right here.
The Army reading list
As the site is rapidly getting slashdotted, here is a mirror of a few of the best images (more added as they become available and are awesome):
Apollo 11 Mirror (select images)
---------------
ChipotleLovers.com
Chipotle food, locations, pics, links, polls and discussion!
With all the hoax talk, I thought I'd mention something actually concerning the missions.
I'm a bit of a 60's/70's space nut. I read all the books recently published (Gene Kranz's "Failure is not an Option", Chris Kraft's "Flight" and Gene Cernan's "Last Man on the Moon" are all incredible) and think the boxed "From the Earth to the Moon" DVD set might be the best thing HBO ever did.
Anyway.
Did you notice there are no (or very, very few) camera shots of Neil, but loads of Buzz? That's because Buzz was a bit of a PITA about the mission. He whined for months about not being the first out of the LEM, even after Deke Slayton told him the mission schedule. He tried to take it higher, using his deep religious feelings with politicians to try and be the first man out, but failed.
He did bring along a tiny Communion set and did indeed take Communion just after landing. But he was still pissed, and this was reflected in his refusal to use his camera much, if at all. The only shots of Neil were frame grabs off the LEM mounted 16mm cam.
Neil however, took loads of pics of Buzz, using the belly mounted Hasselblads they both had. So, Buzz became immortalized because there were simply more photos of him...saluting the flag, that classic closeup, etc.
Interesting that the attitudes of the astronauts weren't discussed much till decades later, NASA wishing to preserve the "rock star" image of the men.
I highly recommend reading at least one of the above books, probably this one which has a special if you buy it with Flight, Kraft's great book.
Both show just how amazing the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were, and just how analog their equipment was.
Sadly the books will also give you a clue why a program like Apollo will never happen again in America, unless something radically changes.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
OK all you conspiracy advocates, if the moon landings were faked, then explain to me why would the soviets have let us get away with it? They had deep space tracking capability, and the glaring lack of actual spacecraft going to the moon beaming back telemetry data and voice comm would have been a dead giveaway! I grew up in the sixties, and on launch mornings the pre launch broadcasts usually included a shot of the Soviet 'fishing' trawlers hanging off the coast observing the proceedings. The spacecraft could be tracked with radar all the way to, around, and back from the moon. They sent that Luna mission to try to return samples and steal our thunder, (which we were able to track) but crashed instead. After the failure of their own manned lunar program The Soviets would not have tried such a foolish stunt themselves because they knew they would'nt have been able to fool anyone, and neither would we! To this day, no one in the soviet government or space program, has ever made any suggestion that we did'nt actually go to the moon.
I'm not saying that the United States wouldn't have eventually built a decent space program without von Braun and his team. But to say that they didn't contribute much simply because we would have gotten there eventually without them is absurd for two reasons: 1) they actually got us there, and 2) it was the Germans' use of rockets during WWII that made the US actually want to develop rocketry. The US was more or less happily ignoring Goddard til the V-2s started hitting Britain.
I have in my notes from Dr. John Krige's "History of Rocketry" course at Georgia Tech the following text of a telegram sent immediately from Germany to Washington upon the debriefing of the captured von Braun and his personnel (emphasis mine):
And the guy was right. It was a hell of a "kick start" the Germans gave us.