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Digitized Apollo Flight Films Available Online

Pooua writes "SpaceRef reports that NASA and Arizona State University have teamed up to offer all of NASA's Apollo lunar films online at no charge. The images are scanned from the original films at high resolution, then offered as 16-bit TIFF or 8-bit PNG or ISIS files. The project is expected to take 3 years, but some images are already available. The ASU-NASA website is located at the Arizona State University Apollo Image Archive."

74 comments

  1. So by eclectro · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does this mean that there will finally be an oscar for the set design?

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    1. Re:So by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't think so, but if you wait until the special edition comes out you may be able to get to hear the director's commentary

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    2. Re:So by HermMunster · · Score: 2, Informative

      They are not films. They are simply photos from film. Big difference.

      --
      You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
    3. Re:So by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In this version, Buzz steps first!

    4. Re:So by 2.7182 · · Score: 1

      No but it might be indistinguishable from the David Hasselhorf video.

  2. Can't be fake by Verteiron · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I found a hair on one of the images. The last one, just SE of the hill in the center of the crater. For some reason, this amuses me.

    --
    End of lesson. You may press the button.
    1. Re:Can't be fake by arth1 · · Score: 1

      Hairs and fibers seem to be all over the place. On the first image, at , there's spots where you get several hairs and specks of dust in the same zoomed in frame. In addition, there's horisontal stripes, like if the originals have been damaged by a feeder.
      This is not good, considering that these are from the frozen (literally!) originals. It probably implies that the scans were not done in a clean environment, and might unfortunately also mean that the originals may have become damaged by the scan.

    2. Re:Can't be fake by stonedcat · · Score: 0

      On the bright side.... it's just the damn moon.

      --
      You can't take the sky from me.
    3. Re:Can't be fake by jgoemat · · Score: 2, Funny

      My GOD, the moon is inhabited by giant hairstylists!

  3. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    16-bit TIFF or 8-bit PNG? Why don't they use 16-bit PNG?

    1. Re:Huh? by arth1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      16-bit TIFF or 8-bit PNG? Why don't they use 16-bit PNG?

      Probably because if you get the PNG instead of the TIFF, the reason is you need to save space and/or bandwidth. The PNG files have also have a reduced resolution (RTFA).
      If you needed the full quality, you would go for the 1.2 GB(!) TIFF anyhow.

      The scan itself is 12-bit, which they say is as good as 14-bit due to some Leica trickery. Since the originals don't have a high contrast, my guess is that they've simply increased the contrast while scanning, making more pixels fall into different slots. ICBW, but if so, it's still 12-bits, just contrast-enhanced.
    2. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "some Leica trickery"

      You mean like how they were able to sell their very very good but still not top-of-the-line lenses for top-of-the-line prices in the 70s?

      Sooo much money, and all I wanted to do was look like Eisie...

    3. Re:Huh? by imroy · · Score: 1

      Probably because if you get the PNG instead of the TIFF, the reason is you need to save space and/or bandwidth.

      I don't follow your reasoning. They're both just image formats. And in this case, the PNG can hold the exact same information as the TIFF. The only difference would be the size reduction due to the use of LZ compression in PNG. There's no point to differentiate due to file type in this case - just put the different resolutions in different directories or name them slightly differently.

    4. Re:Huh? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      People who need the files in full, uncut resolution and depth also need them in TIFF format, because that's the de-facto standard for large pictures. On the other hand, TIFF does not support the great compression that PNG does.

      PNG would not be the best choice for both, because that would mean that many people would have to convert it from PNG to TIFF again at the other end before their software would be able to handle it. While PNG is becoming more and more common, it's not ubiquitous, and especially not so for this type of work. (One good reason why PNG won't take over is that you can save a TIFF with layers, and take your work between different applications, avoiding proprietary file formats.)

      Another good reason to have the full res image in TIFF is that it's what the scanner software saves it as. No conversion necessary.

      Thus TIFF is used for the full format pictures, and PNG for the pictures in lower resolution/bitrate, which are only going to be downloaded by those who aren't willing to download a 1.2 GB picture.

  4. I'd like to see more stuff like this by clusterlizard · · Score: 1

    out of the government. I've been searching for videos of nuclear detonations online forever and haven't come up with anything. Maybe it's time to try again...

    --
    i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman
    1. Re:I'd like to see more stuff like this by fr4nk · · Score: 1, Informative

      You should see this movie.

    2. Re:I'd like to see more stuff like this by maeka · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah, if it is documentaries with lots of nuclear explosions you want, thisis the movie for you.

    3. Re:I'd like to see more stuff like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol mod parent up - this one is so dire its funny - a la 'attack of the killer tomatoes'

    4. Re:I'd like to see more stuff like this by GenKreton · · Score: 1

      This project is being undertaken due to the vast amount of research being done for Constellation and CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle) which are set to go back to the moon and maybe Mars. I've sat in several presentations about these efforts here at Johnson Space Center (JSC) and they all end up discussing the research of Apollo and how crappy the archives are. Computers weren't used back then for archival and they are working on setting up massive databases for all the paperwork now.

    5. Re:I'd like to see more stuff like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not the film you're looking for. http://www.archive.org/details/isforAto1953 However that's what I got when I used the search term atom. I know they have film of the tests on the containers they were going to use at Yucca Mountain so they may have what you want too.

    6. Re:I'd like to see more stuff like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is because the yield (number of megatons) can be determined from a video of a nuclear explosion. As the yield is classified, don't expect to see any videos any time soon.

  5. Another resource by TrippTDF · · Score: 3, Informative

    For any interested parties, the Apollo Archive is another great project to put Apollo media online.

    1. Re:Another resource by bcrowell · · Score: 1

      To me, the wording of the slashdot summary ("films") implied that the story was about scanning in video. Actually it's about scanning in still photographs. The link from the parent post has downloads of some videos ("Apollo Multimedia," and see, e.g., "Armstrong steps onto the Moon's surface").

  6. Apollo 11 Tapes? by necro81 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So, has anyone yet found the lost original tapes of the Apollo 11 landing?

    1. Re:Apollo 11 Tapes? by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      which ones? moon girls gone wild? or Astronauts gone wild in space?

      you know they shot those right after the astronauts broke for a smoke break and they needed to use the set to make some money for Universal Studios.

      remember, Universal Studios for all your Conspiracy needs, all 10,000 employees can keep their mouth shut for decades, and they have an industrial incinerator to get rid of all the evidence.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Apollo 11 Tapes? by dbolger · · Score: 1

      I had thought they found them - the dude who produced Dark Side of the Moon had them in his vault.

    3. Re:Apollo 11 Tapes? by antdude · · Score: 1

      Yes, but what happened after that? Are they doing anything with them like releasing better quality to the public? I remember Wired (good read) mentioned this.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  7. Re:tin-foil hat by TrippTDF · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't believe that in this day and age, people still refuse to believe that we never landed on the moon.

    i can't believe in this day and age, we haven't landed on Mars yet!

    Question- had funding levels and interest in space contunues at the level it was at in the 60s and 70s, would we have landed on Mars by now?
  8. An Idea by E++99 · · Score: 1

    It's amazing, looking at the samples they have on the site, the depth of resolution they have and, correspondentially, the vast range of crater sizes. Someone could write some software to extrapolate from just a couple of these photos, not only the distribution of meteor sizes in earth's vicinity, but the progression of the distribution of sizes through time.

    1. Re:An Idea by Iron+Sun · · Score: 3, Informative

      Done years ago. It's why planetologists talk about periods like the Late Heavy Bombardment.

    2. Re:An Idea by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 1

      Someone could write some software to extrapolate from just a couple of these photos, not only the distribution of meteor sizes in earth's vicinity, but the progression of the distribution of sizes through time.

      And what you'll end up with is a very general idea of the relative progression of impacts. Chances are very good that this is already known since these images have been kicking around in one form or another for four decades.

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    3. Re:An Idea by E++99 · · Score: 1

      I know it's been a subject of study. But has it been done in an automated matter? I would think the image processing power required to do so hasn't been around for that long. If it hasn't been done, the vastly larger quantity of data that could be processed by an automated system would give a vastly greater time and size resolution, which could potentially yield trends that have implications for related fields of study.

  9. Re:tin-foil hat by rainlord · · Score: 1

    What does Apollo 13 and Jim Lovell have to do with the moon landing being a hoax? Apollo 13's mission to go to the moon had to be aborted because of the problems they encountered on the way there, and a moon landing was never attempted on that specific mission.

    The hoax is about people believing that the first moon landing was a hoax, Apollo 13 (in your example) didn't even get to the point where they attempted a moon landing.

    Your double negative in "people still refuse to believe that we never landed on the moon" is also quite funny...

  10. Re:tin-foil hat by noidentity · · Score: 1

    So what if some people believe it was faked? They have their reasons, and I have mine for believing it was real. Do you consider them obligated to believe that it was real? I just don't understand the ill attitude.

  11. Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by arthurpaliden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In 1969 the Americans first landed men on the moon. Now some people have made names for themselves by saying that this and subsequent landings never happened. Their position is that NASA faked them in order to save face and fool the public. To prove their point they rely on explanations of the reported events using dubious science and lay explanations that any first year science major would and does, laugh at.

    However, they always miss or purposely avoid the the one piece of irrefutable proof that it did in fact happen. That is that the Soviet government never refuted the American claims and they were in a unique position to do so. For even after the Americans landed on the moon the Soviets still continued to send orbiters, landers and rovers to the moon.

    http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spacecraft_planetar y_lunar.html

    Now if they wanted to get the goods on the Americans all they had to do was to land, photograph or explore with a rover the American landing sights. Just imagine the embarrassment not to mention the the damage to American credibility, at the height of the cold war no less, that such information would generate. Records even show that they never landed or even explored that areas that that American landings happened. So they did not even go and look to make sure because they knew it really happened.

    But they did not. They did not use it to pressure the Americans to stop bombing North Vietnam and Cambodia where Soviet military advisers were being killed as a result. They did not use it to pressure the United States to stop sending military advisers to and providing Stinger missiles to the Afghan fighters during the Soviet occupation. They did not use it to stop the Star Wars program of the Regan administration.

    In fact they did not even use it to turn the West's attention away from the Soviet Union during the Soviet Coup of 1991 when members of the Soviet government briefly deposed Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and attempted to take control of the country.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_coup_attempt_o f_1991

    Which every body knew was the last death throws of the Soviet empire. If they did not use the information then to turn the attention of the American, and world public, inward to their own governments lies and thus corruption and force it to ignore the events in the Soviet Union in order to deal with a damaging domestic and international issue. Then the proof of faked moon landings did not and never existed.

    One final thought. After the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian economy tanked. People were selling all kinds of stuff owed by the crumbling state, ships, weapons, artworks and knowledge but nobody ever approached any Western news agency or tabloid to sell them this information. And to say that one would buy it but not publish is foolish. The seller could just keep peddling it until some on did and then it would be old news and worthless until then it would still be worth something.

    1. Re:Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by ralewi1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Although there may be millions of idiots that believe the moon landing was a hoax, or perhaps worse, could be a hoax since they don't know any better, there are a few intelligent, well-reasoned self-proclaimed scientists who write books, do talks, etc that push the whole sordid matter. I recommend reading Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things to get an ideal why this phenomena happens and help understand how to control it. Don't underestimate the ability for intelligent people to delude themselves!

    2. Re:Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by Kjella · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Dude, it's because the Soviets were in on it, or the US had some dirt on the Soviets, or space aliens mind controlled them both or whatever. Trying to dissuade conspiracy theorists from their conspiracy is like trying to prove to a paranoid person he's not being followed. The more you tell him noone's following, the more convienced he is that you're lying to fool him or you're a pawn they use to trick him, and everyone is simply pretending not to follow him. Yhe more you tell them there is no conspiracy, the more "proof" there is a conspiracy because nobody is willing to tell the truth. The more testimony, the more evidence you present there is no conspiracy, it just "proves" how big the conspiracy is. Ultimately they think that everyone else is either part of the conspiracy or has been tricked by the conspiracy, and that only they and their fellow conspiracy theorists know the truth.

      It's much the same methods and logic as used in for example Holocaust denial, despite tons of evidence they claim it's all fabricated, the jews are lying, the captured Nazis were tortured and are lying, the Allied forces are lying, all other eyewitnesses are lying, the concentration camps, gas chambers and whatnot were fake, in short tens of millions of people and massive labor efforts would conspire to create it. Yet the conspiracy lives on, and it's a far less likely one than a faked moon landing. And it's certainly no surprise that it's being fueled up again as most of the eyewitnesses and the first-hand accounts are dying, ao they can claim it's all based on propaganda. It's FUD of the highest order.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by Teancum · · Score: 2, Informative

      The amazing story that did "leak out" after the collapse of the Soviet Union was that not only was there a tacit confirmation of the Apollo program... but that the Russians really were in a "space race" to get to the Moon as well. Discoveries of a Russian lunar lander (not just a prototype, but a real working machine capable of landing on the surface of the Moon), documents about some of the cosmonaut training for going to the Moon, and some of their plans for how they were going to accomplish the task were uncovered.

      The only thing that kept the Russians from getting there first was that they made a few mistakes in trying to scale up their rocket designs, as the Russian equivalent to the Saturn V blew up on the launch pad taking out several workers and destroying nearly all of the launch equipment. Had some better engineering decisions been made at the right time not too much earlier, and it would have been a Russian instead of Neil Armstrong who could have first planted a flag on the Moon. For P.R. spin purposes, the Russian government after 1969 claimed that it was never a goal to get to the Moon in the first place and killed any attempts to restart the program.

      I have no doubt that then or even now the Russians could build and develop independently the capability of getting to the Moon... and do so for a fraction of the cost of the Apollo program.

      The only way to truly put these rumors to rest is to wait for the day when a Dateline:NBC reporter shows up at the site of the Apollo 11 landing and plants his foot next to Neil's and Buzz's footprints. Unfortunately that is still several decades away from happening, and is much more likely that Dateline:NBC will be canceled as a TV show first. Even then, there will still be skeptics who will claim at that time the U.S. government will have a secret committee who set up the models from the Hollywood back lot and put them on the Moon as a sort of rewriting of history... once ordinary people can go to the Moon and check it out for themselves.

    4. Re:Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by Richard+W.M.+Jones · · Score: 1

      Honestly, although you are right, it's really not worth engaging these idiots who claim that humans haven't been to the moon. By posting your +5 comment, at the time of writing 50% of the comments to the article now refer these stupid claims that the landing was faked, and that just gives credence to these nutters, who are a tiny percentage of the readership of slashdot.

      Rich.

    5. Re:Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      The existence of L1 rocket in Russia was not a secret before USSR collapse. The main problem of USSR lunar program was very low budgets. The Apollo program had about 10 times more money.

      And USSR completely lost interest in manned Moon programs after US astronauts landed on the Moon.

    6. Re:Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you assume that the Russians knew that NASA had faked the landings?
      What if they didn't know?

    7. Re:Non-Technical Proff we Landed on the Moon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, what if the couldn't track Apollo or intercept NASA's comms.

      Oh, wait a sec...

  12. forever eh? by darnoKonrad · · Score: 1
    1. Re:forever eh? by modecx · · Score: 1

      Not that I ever thought to look for such things, but hey, that's pretty cool, thanks for the link.

      --
      Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
  13. Re:tin-foil hat by arth1 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    i can't believe in this day and age, we haven't landed on Mars yet!

    But we have, multiple times! That we haven't put humans on Mars doesn't mean we haven't landed there. And what, exactly, would a human be able to find out that couldn't be better found out by spending the same amount on automated systems? To me, it seems it would be meaningless bravado, risking human lives for no real benefits.

    Regards,
    --
    *Art
  14. People on Mars by infonography · · Score: 3, Funny

    Mars was the original home of Humanity before the great collapse of the atmosphere that protected the early Martian People. This was 70 thousand years (earth) ago.

    They narrowly avoided the disaster in time thanks to their Chief Scientist AlGor who warned of the impending doom.

    --
    Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
    1. Re:People on Mars by TrippTDF · · Score: 1

      sounds like we'd better start prepping venus, then.

  15. Missing by BigBadBus · · Score: 1

    Don't forget that many of the original broadcasts from the Lunar surface are missing. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le1218885.ece

  16. Happy Hours by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does this mean that we'll see tips on how to mix drinks in 0 gravity, too?

  17. ISIS file? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is an ISIS file?

  18. According to Occam's Razor... by Franklin+Brauner · · Score: 1

    ...the Soviets were in on it. ;-)

    1. Re:According to Occam's Razor... by arthurpaliden · · Score: 1

      Then why did they not also 'land on the moon' so as not to seem backward losers..

    2. Re:According to Occam's Razor... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They did, you stupid fucker. Look up Lunokhod if you can manage to operate google.

    3. Re:According to Occam's Razor... by Franklin+Brauner · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because, obviously, they were in on it. Have you never heard of the boxer who throws the fight?

    4. Re:According to Occam's Razor... by arthurpaliden · · Score: 1

      We were discussing 'manned landings', please pay attention. I know it can be hard.

  19. repetitive, laborious work by icepick72 · · Score: 1
    that NASA and Arizona State University have teamed up to offer all of NASA's Apollo lunar films online


    Interpreted as: There's a lot of cheap labor at ASU. So graduate, do you want to scan NASA films or work at McDonalds?

  20. I looked as hard as I could by kollywabbles · · Score: 0, Redundant

    But I couldn't find the American flag.

    --
    put it in the bit bucket
  21. Stills not motion by Have+Brain+Will+Rent · · Score: 1

    It should be noted that this project seems to be all about the various stills taken. When I saw the word "films" in the title it didn't imply stills to me. But a great thing nonetheless.

    --
    The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
  22. Hold on there, We've been here before! by Quatermass · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Hold on there. Didn't NASA offer all their lunar shots as high-res TIFFs way back in the 1990's? I remember demonstrating the 'Internet' to classes back then and one of the key points was being able to look at very high-res TIFF pictures of Neil Armstrong's fuzzy out of focus shots!

    Then suddenly they were withdrawn. Probably the bandwidth at that time made it far too expensive!

    Glad to see they're coming back though...

    --
    Stuart http://stuarthalliday.com/
    1. Re:Hold on there, We've been here before! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      You're not mistaken - I still have a whole load of them on this machine. I scrounged a ton of high quality images from the NASA Image Exchange years (more than a decade) ago. Does the NIX no longer exist?

    2. Re:Hold on there, We've been here before! by Pooua · · Score: 2, Informative

      NIX is still online: NIX Home I can only speculate about the difference between NIX and AIA, but I suspect that NIX only has images that have been cataloged up to now, not necessarily every Apollo image on film. AIA is supposed to scan all the stills, eventually. Maybe AIA will share the results with NIX?

      --
      Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
  23. Re:tin-foil hat by Teancum · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And what, exactly, would a human be able to find out that couldn't be better found out by spending the same amount on automated systems? To me, it seems it would be meaningless bravado, risking human lives for no real benefits.


    I hear this argument over and over again.... and I don't buy it.

    You simply need to have somebody "on the ground" and able to "pick up" a rock, turn stuff over, and react to the local environment... where you don't have to discuss in "committee" what action you are going to do next.

    I would have to agree that the "initial reconnaissance" ought to be done by robots.... as it was done on the Moon as well (or have you forgot the Ranger series of spacecraft?) When you have so many unknowns, as there were about the Moon back in the 1950's regarding the whole idea of even physically landing on the Moon, it was vital to get something "out there" and test what is going on. This is wise in term of nearly all sorts potentially dangerous situations, which is why even the military is setting up robots to go into potentially dangerous areas for recon purposes.

    But there does reach a point where you have to physically send somebody to the place in order to conduct field research... as remote vehicles simply are far too limited and can't be designed to take on every contingency. Having somebody with opposable thumbs and fingers capable of being "programed" at a distance with just a few words and be able to fix something like wiping the dust off of a solar panel, or even being able to "think outside of the box" and come up with a totally new situation.

    In spite of the fact that he was on the Moon for less than two days, Harrison Schmitt conducted far more scientific discovery on the Moon and gathered more real usable data than all of the robotic missions to all of the rest of the planets combined, except for perhaps the Earth itself. I am not making that claim lightly either. He also took decades of real experience being a professional geologist.... a PhD even in that field... and used that knowledge while on the Lunar surface to gather some samples that none of the other twelve astronauts would have even considered. Dr. Schmitt's research will literally be referred to for centuries to come as a foundation of extra-terrestrial mineralogy and "geologic" studies. He would not have been able to do any of that unless "he was there" and capable of making those crucial decisions about what to skip and what to grab.

    I can't even imagine what would happen if a full scale permanent laboratory was on the Moon with full time scientists capable of doing something that wasn't so much of a rush job that it seemed like a temporary layover between international flights at an airport. And going to some of the more "interesting" areas of the Moon rather than selecting parts of the Moon that were chosen explicitly because they were boring... like trying to determine the geology of the Earth by landing in the middle of a corn field in Kansas instead of in the Grand Canyon of Arizona.

    There still is some "low hanging fruit" of scientific knowledge that can be gathered by robotic vehicles to explore Mars, such as Spirit and Opportunity. But there will be a point of diminishing returns where having somebody on the ground there to conduct the research will not only return much more information, but significantly more data. And this is only the "scientific" justification for sending people into space and going to Mars. Or Antarctica to use another example of a comparatively hostile environment where scientists do go physically for research. People live year round at the South Pole itself, for crying out loud. Are you suggesting here that they should all be replaced by robots too?

    There are also other reasons for going to Mars besides pure scientific rationales, but I don't want to digress any more with those further points.
  24. Here it is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  25. Nasa Journal by florescent_beige · · Score: 2, Informative

    I realize someone mentioned apolloarchive, but Nasa also has an incredible amount of Apollo material online.

    Almost everything you want to know about the mission op's is here.

    The Apollo 11 landing from 11 minutes out is amazing, including the 1202's. But I have to admit, the one that sends shivers down my spine every time I watch it is Apollo 17. Cernan & Schmitt's reaction after the pitchover when they see the landing zone is better than anything you've ever seen in a movie, ever.

    --
    Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
  26. 14 bit by jgoemat · · Score: 1

    The scan itself is 12-bit, which they say is as good as 14-bit due to some Leica trickery. Since the originals don't have a high contrast, my guess is that they've simply increased the contrast while scanning, making more pixels fall into different slots. ICBW, but if so, it's still 12-bits, just contrast-enhanced.

    Actually, they say the original films (at least some types) do have high contrast, so they were able to modify the Leica to scan at 14 bits instead of the standard 12 bits to capture all the detail from the film that they can.

    Each metric frame is scanned using a Leica DSW 700 photogrammetric scanner, which obtains a 200 pix/mm (5 micron pixels) spatial resolution and 14-bit A/D (16,384 shades of grey). The DSW 700 was modfied from the original 12-bit A/D to a 14-bit A/D because the Moon is a very contrasty target and the original film is capable of capturing a very wide range of grey scale variation. The combination of small pixels (5 micron) and the 14-bit gray scale results in a very detailed scan and very large raw scan files (1.3 Gbytes).
    1. Re:14 bit by arth1 · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected -- thanks!

  27. Re:tin-foil hat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What does Apollo 13 and Jim Lovell have to do with the moon landing being a hoax?

    Because Lovell went to the fucking moon, that's what. He flew around it, but he went there.

    The hoax is about people believing that the first moon landing was a hoax

    No, it's about people believing that they were all faked.

  28. Re:tin-foil hat by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 1

    And what, exactly, would a human be able to find out that couldn't be better found out by spending the same amount on automated systems?

    What it feels like to stand on Mars, you unromantic nerd.

    --
    In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
  29. Re:tin-foil hat by arth1 · · Score: 1

    What it feels like to stand on Mars, you unromantic nerd.

    That's easy. Spin a space station section to create an artificial gravity where you weigh a third of what you do down here. Or, much cheaper, send a plane on a hyperbolic trajectory where it sustains approximately 1/3 G for a short while. Combined it with footage shot from Mars, uncomfortable suits and the curse of all long voyages, the smell of urine, and the experience should be complete.
  30. Re:tin-foil hat by arth1 · · Score: 1

    You're avoiding the question: "what, exactly, would a human be able to find out that couldn't be better found out by spending the same amount on automated systems?"

    Your answer says that a human can find out more than a machine, which isn't at doubt at all. But when it costs several hundred times more to send humans, the equation becomes very different. I have yet to hear a single argument that convinces me that the scientific value of one human mission exceeds that of hundreds of automated ones.
    And, remember, that Mars is a hell of a lot farther away than the Moon, and the gravity is twice as high. The problems of sending humans to Mars is orders of magnitude more complex, not only because of life support both ways, but because you have to be able to lift off and achieve escape velocity from Mars, unless you plan on stranding the nauts there. Then there's the whole psychological issue of keeping people boxed in for prolonged periods of time. It's not insurmountable, but it's going to be horribly expensive.

    I would much rather see more money invested in projects like Son of Hubble, and probes to other solar system objects. In the amount of bang for the buck, I would claim that the probes we've sent have told us far more than the moon landings, at a fraction of the cost. The Voyager probes were, IMHO, far more important to humankind than Apollo.

  31. Re:tin-foil hat by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 1

    But you know you're not standing on Mars, so it doesn't feel the same. Just like watching a video of a rock concert isn't the same as really being there, even if you play it really loud and get a bunch of strangers to stand around you cheering. Of course, I never really expected you to get the point anyway.

    --
    In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199