Historic Photography Questions: The Apollo XI Crew Wants to Take a Picture in Space

So I am reading the Taschen Version of Norman Mailer’s “Of a Fire on The Moon”, which is called “Moon Fire”, a very interesting, rather personal report on the first Moonlanding, which he was comissioned to write about. A splendid book!


Buzz Aldrin. Image: NASA.

There is this one section, where the author is listening to the rather boring conversations between the spaceship and mission control. For the first time, men are flying to the moon, and everything is so sober, so deprived of miracle and wonder. Robots communicating. Mailer is utterly bored and dissappointed. Until 02 23 33 47 into the flight, when Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin can’t hide their awe anymore. For the first time they seem somehow excited. Something wonderful is happening. They want to take a picture with their Hasselblad.

I have always been a bit of an aerospace nerd. Intrigued by Mailer’s paragraph, I started searching the various NASA databases, some of the most amazing ressources on the word wide internets. Here is what I found:

The original dialog from the technical transcript at NASA.

‘CDR [Commander - Neil Armstrong] Houston, do you read Apollo 11?

CC [Capsule Communicator at Houston Mission Control] Roger, 11. We’re reading you loud and clear now. We were down in the noise as we switched antennas a minute or so ago. Over.

CMP [Command Module Pilot - Michael Collins] Roger. What sort of [F] settings could you recommend for the solar corona? We’ve got the Sun right behind the edge of the Moon now.

LMP [Lunar Module Pilot - Aldrin] It’s quite an erie sight. There is a very marked three-dimensional aspect of having the Sun’s corona coming from behind the Moon the way it is.

CC Roger.

LMP And it looks as though - I guess what’s giving it that three-dimensional effect is the earthshine. I can
see Tycho fairly clearly - at least if I’m right side-up, I believe it’s Tycho, in moonshine - I mean, in earthshine. And, of course, I can see the sky is lit all the way around the Moon, even on the limb of it where there’s no earthshine or sunshine.

CC Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.

LMP Go ahead.

CC Roger. If you’d like to take some pictures, we recommend using magazine Uniform which is loaded with high speed black and white film, interior lights off, electric Hasselblad with the 80- millimeter lens. And you’re going to have to hand-hold us, I guess. We’re recommending an f-stop of 2.8, and we’d like to get a sequence of time exposures. Over.

LMP Okay. You want magazine Uniform instead of magazine Tango? Over.

CC Roger. We’re not trying to get you all wrapped up in a procedure here. This is on a not-to-interfere basis, of course. Over.

LMP Okay.

CC And on the exposures we’re looking for an eighth of a second,, a half a second. And, if you think
you can steady the camera against anything to get longer exposures, 2 seconds, 4 seconds, and 8 sec-
onds. Over.

LMP Roger. We copy.’

Basically, mission control has no idea. But it sounds so flipping cool with all that Space Talk. They just want to make sure they get at least one exploitable image. But still, an amazing moment in the history of camera settings.

I searched the various NASA Image Banks to find the picture, they were talking about. It must be this one:


Image: NASA.

Here is the link to the description of the photograph.

And here is the PDF (15MB) of original typewritten Technical A/R-To-Ground Voice Transcription at NASA. Go to page 199 of the original document, which is page 201 of the pdf, for the dialogue.

I came across more detailed information about the NASA equipment in this article on Photography During Apollo. It lists the gear used during Apollo VIII, the first manned mission to orbit the moon: “Two Hasselblad EL cameras, each with a Planar f 2.8/80mm [normal] plus a single Sonnar f5.6/250mm [telephoto] lens and seven magazines of 70mm film, were carried. The cameras, film magazines, and lenses used on Apollo 8 had black anodized surfaces to eliminate reflections. Modifications to the cameras included special large locks for the film magazines and levers on the f-stop and distance settings on the lenses. These modifications facilitated the camera’s use by the crew operating with pressurized suits and gloves. Additionally, the cameras had no reflex mirror viewfinder and instead a simple sighting ring assisted the astronaut in pointing the camera.

Apollo XII LMP Alan Bean with his modified Hasselblad 500EL. Image: NASA.
Apollo XII Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean with his ‘Blad Mod. Image: NASA.

Each film magazine would typically yield 160 color and 200 black and white pictures on special film. Kodak was asked by NASA to develop thin new films with special emulsions. On Apollo 8, three magazines were loaded with 70 mm wide, perforated Kodak Panatomic-X fine-grained, 80 ASA, b/w film, two with Kodak Ektachrome SO-68, one with Kodak Ektachrome SO-121, and one with super light-sensitive Kodak 2485, 16,000 ASA film. There were 1100 color, black and white, and filtered photographs returned from the Apollo 8 mission.

In addition to the Hasselblad cameras, Apollo 8 carried a black and white television camera, a 16mm motion picture camera, exposure meters, several types of filters, and other camera accessories.”

And if you are looking for a free Hasselblad EL500, you might still find one lying around at Tranquility Base. Buzz and Neil left their modified data camera on there. This must be the most expensive disposable camera ever.

Apollo XI LMP Buzz Aldrin doing his job at Tranquility Base.
Apollo XI Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin doing his job at Tranquility Base. Image: NASA.

Further reading:
The Apollo XI Hasselblad Cameras.
Photography Equipment and Techniques: A Survey of NASA Developments by Albert J Derr

And an incredible documentary on the quest for the moon, with the score written by Brian Eno: For All Mankind.

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soft rocking the celtic harp for energy love burst

you had a rough day at work?
too many appointments left you with no energy to chew your supper?
those drinks are too heavy to lift?

why not try some celtic harp guided meditiation?
it is lovely.

the new iPad

as you might have heard, apple presented the new iPad yesterday.
among other things, it is supposed to be the new way of reading online periodicals.

well, here is a Mad TV spoof from a few years ago. they had it all pinned down. sort of.
who would have thought that they would actually go for a name like that?
looking forward to more of this kind of humor in the not too distant future.

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Ein herrlicher Tag in den ollen Südtiroler Bergen

Die Kastelruther Spatzen rocking the rocks of the Dolomiten Berge.

This is not a spoof, this is real and they have thousands of hundreds of fans. They are almost bigger than Jesus.
Even ze Pope congratulated them to their 25th stage anniversary.
I congratulate, too!
Good music is always good, even if it is not that good.

UPDATE:
Wau, a song against illegal drugs! It really makes me want to sniff some marihuahner to make it through the song.

High As a Kite

the formidable season finale of californication which culminated in elton john’s “rocket man” left me pretty speechless. first of all, i had to come clear with myself and finally admit that i am a fan of elton john as it seems.

first stop: youtube. the video they offered - featuring lots of apollo footage - reminded me of endless nights i spent on the nasa image exchange back in 2001. one of the finer ressources of high resolution images. a search engine connecting all sorts of  media of the national aeronautics and space administration.

another worthwile nasa subsite is the johnson space center’s history portal, where you can even download the scans of the original apollo communication transcripts. you might want to have a look at page 160 of the technical air-to-ground voice transcription of apollo 13, where the words “Houston we’ve had a problem” are typewritten in a searchable pdf file:

02 07 55 19 LMP Okay, Houston - -

02 07 55 20 CDR I believe we’ve had a problem here.

02 07 55 28 CC This is Houston. Say again, please.

02 07 55 35 CDR Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT.


the original handmade apollo 13 co2 filter.

the whole text makes a good reading when you are bored on a long haul flight.

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call me oldfashioned

yesterday was fleamarket at pop in.

although i was not allowed to have my merguez stand, it was a lot of fun.

best of all, i found a pretty picture disc. i guess i spent more money than i earned there. while it was cold and rainy outside, i comforted myself with a little bit of summer feeling. kiss my ass, november.

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custom cars and tasty trinks from nippon

somedays, i want hug the shit out of japan.
flatscreens in your headrests! (is that the word?)

and product we have all been waiting for. sort of. at least for a infomercial like this.
i still can’t believe it. good product!

both clips from them lofely people at ugur skeite.

walking on a yacht

i like it when there are extensive wikipedia entries about pretty songs.

slow evening

mhmm.
crisps. cigarettes. cheap mousseux. and walt disney.
i love those singing animals.

my friend makes peace, bikes and records

my friend fabien fabre has an exhibition going on with his hand made bicycles.

he makes them with his bare hands! they are extremely refined.
one of the few guys that still uses wooden rims. but that is just one of the more obvious facts.

there are some parts incorporated that did the tour de france in the fifties.

all parts are premium quality that match his almost ridiculous standards.

this means that basically every screw has a pedigree. most of the parts come from craftsmen that are among the last ones on this planet that have the - ouh a french word! - savoir faire for their production.

appart from that he also has a record coming out. the vinyl is as detailed, as his bikes. well, almost. the first etched 12″ i came across in modern times. plus it is hilarious.

but then again, these are just his hobbies on the side.

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