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How Duct Tape Saved Apollo 17's Moon Buggy
Ant points out a story
spotted on Boing Boing in which NASA "shares a story that turns back the clock 36 years to reveal the "key roll of duct tape in the Apollo program." The quality of the photographs from the moon always grabs me, and the duct-taped fender here is no exception.
Sealing ammo cans with cloth tape. Though the origin of the name is a controversy, the term is originally "Duck Tape" because water is repelled by the outside surface, thus making it good for ammo cans. You can get the can wet, pull it out of the wet, and since the water rolled off, open the can right away without getting much water in the can. Or, so the story goes.
The quality of the photographs from the moon always grabs me, and the duct-taped fender here is no exception.
Medium-format sized negatives. Shitloads of light (large depth of field and high shutter speeds.) No atmosphere to bend light between subject and camera.
Also, you've got really hard shadows because the light isn't diffused at all by an atmosphere.
Please help metamoderate.
Didn't NASA have a preference back then for Hasselblad medium-format cameras with really good Zeiss lenses?
Pro-level gear with big film can give some really incredibly detailed photos.
The Lunar Surface Journal over here: (more specifically on the Apollo 17 page of course)
:)
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/frame.html
Craploads of imagery from all surface missions, full transcripts, and audio.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Good observation.
This is what I see in the photo: if you look at the front right wheel, you'll see an S-shaped trench leading away from it, going off-camera in the bottom-right of the image. You'll also notice that at the bottom-right of the image a footprint appears which seems to have significantly altered the trench. Actually it looks like it filled it in.
The moondust is very light and prone to redistribution (that's the whole point of TFA, in fact), so perhaps just stepping near a tire-track is enough to fill in the trench (after the dust settles)? If so, then when you look at the back-right wheel, you'll see that there are footprints there which may have disturbed the ground and filled in the trench from the wheel (especially since he would have had to walk all over the place near that wheel while performing the repair). Actually there are some faint indications of where a track may have once been.
I'm certainly no expert in these kinds of things, but it seems to me that working near the vehicle would quickly disturb any tracks, because of how light the rocks and dust are on the moon.
Sorry Hoss. You forgot the sun still shines on the moon.
Without an atmosphere I would imagine it gets pretty toasty as well.
Should be enough to warm adhesive.