Space Exploration: Camera Edition
The successful launch and return of Artemis II in recent time brought much needed optimism and joy to many households. The mission also exposed the blatant ignorance of many Americans, but I am not even going to consider that for now. What I do care about, however, are cameras and astrophysics (with my very limited and not at all professional understanding), and I will discuss certain milestones in this post.
First Images from Space:
I was quite surprised to learn that the first footage taken from space is in fact, via a motion picture camera, resulting in an awesome timelapse video. In October, 1946, scientists in New Mexico launched a (German) V-2 rocket to study the distance between molecules in the upper atmosphere. The rocket reached an altitude of 105km, which sat right in the mesosphere. The mesosphere, as the name suggests, is about halfway through Earth's entire atmosphere, and is the coldest one (-2.5 ~ -86.5 °C). The camera was obviously destroyed on its way back to the ground, but miraculously, the film survived.
Oh and guess what? It was retrieved by Clyde Holliday, principal staff engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Rare moment of undergrad nostalgia.
First Images of Space Taken by Human:
The US-USSR space race was the highlight of the Cold War era, and gave us so much incredible technology and memorabilia. The Russians were very much winning it on every front. Besides the collectible Interkosmos pins (which look so much more sick than the NASA pins), we got Gherman Titov taking the first photos/color photos/video footage of the Earth by a human from space via Vostok 2 in 1961, and Alexei Leonov performing the first ever EVA (extravehicular activity, a.k.a. space walk) plus being pictured/filmed in space via Voskhod 2 in 1965. Alexei was also an artist, so he became the first artist in space.
Hasselblads in Space:
The first Hasselblad medium format camera was brought into space due to an astronaut's own passion for photography. Walter "Wally" Schirra bought a Hasselblad 500C, modded it for space, built a new film magazine to allow for 70 exposures instead of the usual 12 of a roll of medium format film. It launched alongside the crew for Mercury 8 (MA-8) in October, 1962. It was a highly successful experiment that produced quality images, well, how wrong could you go with a Hasselblad and medium format film? Thus began a long partnership between Hasselblad and NASA space programs. Then, the HDC (Hasselblad Data Camera) was born to document Apollo's lunar landings, taken down to the lunar surface. It carried a Zeiss (yes, the same Zeiss that now makes flawless mirrors for ASML to make computer chips) Biogon 60mm f/5.6 lens and 70mm film magazine containing specially formulated thin-base Kodak film, allowing up to 200 shots per magazine. There was also the HEC (Hasselblad Electric Camera) which carried a Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8 lens, made to shoot from inside the Eagle lunar module. The HDC was a masterpiece of engineering ingenuity, painted silver as a way to stabilize the camera when moving between temperatures ranging from -65°C to >120°C. Thanks to Armstrong, who took it upon himself to take all the photos with the camera attached to his chest, which have never even been tested in space before (I know this feeling too well from when I shot the total solar eclipse two years ago).
The HDC pulled through, obviously, working perfectly under extreme conditions. After the lunar landing was complete, and the Hasselblads (HDC and HEC) had their film magazines removed, they were both left behind along with their lenses, components, ancillary support accessories and jettisoned in order to satisfy the strict weight requirement for the lander's return to space. Other Apollo missions all followed suit, leaving behind a total of 12 Hasselblad cameras on the Moon.
I am more than lucky to have found a copy of the HEC here in NYC, where the owners of a camera store had acquired it from a gallery sale.
I luckily encountered two more space cameras not too long after, at the annual Leitz Photographica Auction. Seen here, a Zeiss Ikon Contarex space camera developed for the Gemini programs, originally commissioned in West Germany. Alongside it the Hasselblad SWC (Super Wide Camera), which was later discontinued in favor of the Hasselblad 500 EL.
DIY:
I capture some photos on Ektar 100 and Portra 400 of the Moon during the Artemis II flyby mission. I assembled a boomerang, which I was rather proud of :).
Sources:
Timeline of first images of Earth from space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_first_images_of_Earth_from_space
The first photo from space: https://www.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comments/7ynmik/the_first_photo_from_space_in_oct_1946_a_group_of/
Hasselblad in Space: https://www.hasselblad.com/about/history/hasselblad-in-space/
