Film subjected to vacuum testing

[BertieSlack]

Has anybody seen this new article at Aulis?
https://www.aulis.com/vacuum.htm
I'd be very interested to hear some views.

Hope everybody is keeping safe and well.

[Abaddon]

Has anybody seen this new article at Aulis?
https://www.aulis.com/vacuum.htm
I'd be very interested to hear some views.

Hope everybody is keeping safe and well.

Fatally flawed.

That was not the camera used.
They performed the depress/repress cycles and then exposed the film. That is not remotely what happened.
They did not verify that they used the same development process.
They did not account for the colour calibration charts included in Apollo film. Nor did they reason WHY those colour calibration charts were included in the first place. It was exactly to account for such colour space variation and correct for it.

And so on. I can't be bothered with more. Those idiots simply don't care about the facts.


Stay safe, be well.

ETA: Oh and Marcus Allen in involved, the lying ****. That is an immediate red flag.

[Jason Thompson]

So flawed on so many levels Rather like the 'cooking it in an oven' test done years ago, they totally fail to actually reproduce the circumstances because the spacecraft interior was not one atmosphere of normal air but 5psi pure oxygen. Their depressurisation/repressurisation cycle is therefore not a true reflection of the conditions they are trying to examine. They also fail to account for the fact that film development is not a 'this process and ONLY this process' situation, and the process can be tweaked to change the outcome somewhat. I don't know how, because I have never done it nor taken the time to understand the process in depth, but I do know people who are experts, and I know from a little reading that it is possible to change the various steps to produce different results. I also know why they exposed a colour chart at the start of every roll.

So pretty much the usual Aulis 'make it look like science without actually understanding any of the science' rubbish.

[molesworth]

... 'make it look like science without actually understanding any of the science' rubbish.

This is pretty much the modus operandi of every pseudo-science and conspiracy theory proponent, from flat earth to the latest anti-5G and Coronavirus believers.

Unfortunately, to a lot of people, even something that looks vaguely scientific can be compelling evidence, especially if it reinforces their own beliefs.

[BertieSlack]

Rather like the 'cooking it in an oven' test done years ago

I was wondering about the temperature aspect of the 'experiment' as well. In what is the film contained when it has the lamp shining on it? And there is a reference to 'ambient temperature' - ambient temperature of what, I wonder?

[JayUtah]

They were at least smart enough to use ESTAR-base film, except that the film base you get today is many times thicker than the very thin ESTAR base that was actually provided for Apollo.  And actually it was provided for Project Corona.  (That name didn't age well.). It was designed specifically for use in space, for reasons having nothing to do with Apollo.

And yes, ditto to all the obvious methodological errors the others have noticed.  There are simply too many to name.

[smartcooky]

Figure 6. Changes to the film strips are visually apparent. Here the vacuum-exposed film is on the left – the film has lost it's sheen and has shifted to a brownish hue. The control film strip is on the right

What a load of rubbish!

What they have done here is place the two pieces of film different ways up. On the right, the film is substrate side up, on the left it's emulsion side up. The emulsion side of a film is always more dull than the substrate side (just find any piece of 35mm film and examine it yourself). When you look at a piece of film, if the frame numbers are the right way around, you are looking at the back or substrate side of the film; they are back-to-front if you are looking at the emulsion side.

It is also easy to tell just by looking at the photo itself. When film dries by hanging up (without a roller drying machine) the film always curls across its width towards the emulsion side. The film on the left is clearly curled upwards. If both films were the same way up, the reflection from the lamp would be on the same side, but its not - on the right the reflection is on the right side of the strip (outside the curl) while on the left strip, its on the left (inside the curl)

These guys have faked their results.   

[smartcooky]

They also fail to account for the fact that film development is not a 'this process and ONLY this process' situation, and the process can be tweaked to change the outcome somewhat. I don't know how, because I have never done it nor taken the time to understand the process in depth, but I do know people who are experts, and I know from a little reading that it is possible to change the various steps to produce different results.

Yes, the developer makes a difference, and so does the process used.

Process a black and white film in D-76 and you will get different results from processing in Ilford LC-29. Then there is Ilfotec DD-X, Ilfotec RT, Ilfosol 3, ID-11, Perceptol, Microphen also from Ilford, and HC-110, XTOL from Kodak. Although D-76 has been around a long time, there were probably also developers used in the 1960s that are no longer around; IIRC, DK-50 was one of them. All of these developers will yield different results, then on top of that, is HOW the films are developed. Developing in a machine, a tank or as single sheets in a tray or bath will yield different results. Then there are developer strengths (ratio of concentrate to water), developing time and developer temparatore, all of which can be tweeked in the darkroom. If you don't know the chemical and methodology that were used to develop the Apollo films, then anything you do with different films, in a different camera with different developing methods will be  will be meaningless.

Aulis also used C-41 colour film using C-41 process. Well, C-41 wasn't released by Kodak until Late 1972, so all the missions up to Apollo 17 must have used C-22 for their colour negative film, a considerably different process. If you process C-22 in a standard C41 bath, you will ruin it unless you take some very special precautions.

ETA: I just found this of only film developers. All these will yield different results in different circumstances

https://www.digitaltruth.com/data.php?doc=filmdevsabc

[Abaddon]

Figure 6. Changes to the film strips are visually apparent. Here the vacuum-exposed film is on the left – the film has lost it's sheen and has shifted to a brownish hue. The control film strip is on the right

What a load of rubbish!

What they have done here is place the two pieces of film different ways up. On the right, the film is substrate side up, on the left it's emulsion side up. The emulsion side of a film is always more dull than the substrate side (just find any piece of 35mm film and examine it yourself). When you look at a piece of film, if the frame numbers are the right way around, you are looking at the back or substrate side of the film; they are back-to-front if you are looking at the emulsion side.

It is also easy to tell just by looking at the photo itself. When film dries by hanging up (without a roller drying machine) the film always curls across its width towards the emulsion side. The film on the left is clearly curled upwards. If both films were the same way up, the reflection from the lamp would be on the same side, but its not - on the right the reflection is on the right side of the strip (outside the curl) while on the left strip, its on the left (inside the curl)

These guys have faked their results.   

Even visually, from the curl in the film, they are obviously flipped, but what else do you expect from Aulis?

[AtomicDog]

Figure 6. Changes to the film strips are visually apparent. Here the vacuum-exposed film is on the left – the film has lost it's sheen and has shifted to a brownish hue. The control film strip is on the right

What a load of rubbish!

What they have done here is place the two pieces of film different ways up. On the right, the film is substrate side up, on the left it's emulsion side up. The emulsion side of a film is always more dull than the substrate side (just find any piece of 35mm film and examine it yourself). When you look at a piece of film, if the frame numbers are the right way around, you are looking at the back or substrate side of the film; they are back-to-front if you are looking at the emulsion side.

It is also easy to tell just by looking at the photo itself. When film dries by hanging up (without a roller drying machine) the film always curls across its width towards the emulsion side. The film on the left is clearly curled upwards. If both films were the same way up, the reflection from the lamp would be on the same side, but its not - on the right the reflection is on the right side of the strip (outside the curl) while on the left strip, its on the left (inside the curl)

These guys have faked their results.   

I've developed thousands of rolls of film over the years ( I used to work in a minilab) and I could tell instantly what emulsion side vs. substrate side looks like. NO ONE familiar with developing film would make this mistake. This is intentional deceit.

[raven]

Aulis? Using deceptive practices to promote their particular brand of mental sewage?!
Perish the thought!

[apollo16uvc]

They also fail to account for the fact that film development is not a 'this process and ONLY this process' situation, and the process can be tweaked to change the outcome somewhat. I don't know how, because I have never done it nor taken the time to understand the process in depth, but I do know people who are experts, and I know from a little reading that it is possible to change the various steps to produce different results.

Yes, the developer makes a difference, and so does the process used.

Process a black and white film in D-76 and you will get different results from processing in Ilford LC-29. Then there is Ilfotec DD-X, Ilfotec RT, Ilfosol 3, ID-11, Perceptol, Microphen also from Ilford, and HC-110, XTOL from Kodak. Although D-76 has been around a long time, there were probably also developers used in the 1960s that are no longer around; IIRC, DK-50 was one of them. All of these developers will yield different results, then on top of that, is HOW the films are developed. Developing in a machine, a tank or as single sheets in a tray or bath will yield different results. Then there are developer strengths (ratio of concentrate to water), developing time and developer temparatore, all of which can be tweeked in the darkroom. If you don't know the chemical and methodology that were used to develop the Apollo films, then anything you do with different films, in a different camera with different developing methods will be  will be meaningless.

Aulis also used C-41 colour film using C-41 process. Well, C-41 wasn't released by Kodak until Late 1972, so all the missions up to Apollo 17 must have used C-22 for their colour negative film, a considerably different process. If you process C-22 in a standard C41 bath, you will ruin it unless you take some very special precautions.

ETA: I just found this of only film developers. All these will yield different results in different circumstances

https://www.digitaltruth.com/data.php?doc=filmdevsabc

As far as I know Apollo used exclusively Ektachrome colour slide film, not negative. They would have used the E-4 process.

[apollo16uvc]

Anyways, this was a cool experiment, which I have been wanting to do myself.

But it is kind of usefull, since film in all sizes (16mm to large format) was used by space agencies for decades, starting even before manned missions and lasting even a few years on the ISS because digital could not yet match hasselblad resolution.

So given film has been used for decades in EVA's, even extremely complex camera's such as 70mm Imax... all this crap about cold welding, temperature, radiation, is BS.

[smartcooky]

They also fail to account for the fact that film development is not a 'this process and ONLY this process' situation, and the process can be tweaked to change the outcome somewhat. I don't know how, because I have never done it nor taken the time to understand the process in depth, but I do know people who are experts, and I know from a little reading that it is possible to change the various steps to produce different results.

Yes, the developer makes a difference, and so does the process used.

Process a black and white film in D-76 and you will get different results from processing in Ilford LC-29. Then there is Ilfotec DD-X, Ilfotec RT, Ilfosol 3, ID-11, Perceptol, Microphen also from Ilford, and HC-110, XTOL from Kodak. Although D-76 has been around a long time, there were probably also developers used in the 1960s that are no longer around; IIRC, DK-50 was one of them. All of these developers will yield different results, then on top of that, is HOW the films are developed. Developing in a machine, a tank or as single sheets in a tray or bath will yield different results. Then there are developer strengths (ratio of concentrate to water), developing time and developer temparatore, all of which can be tweeked in the darkroom. If you don't know the chemical and methodology that were used to develop the Apollo films, then anything you do with different films, in a different camera with different developing methods will be  will be meaningless.

Aulis also used C-41 colour film using C-41 process. Well, C-41 wasn't released by Kodak until Late 1972, so all the missions up to Apollo 17 must have used C-22 for their colour negative film, a considerably different process. If you process C-22 in a standard C41 bath, you will ruin it unless you take some very special precautions.

ETA: I just found this of only film developers. All these will yield different results in different circumstances

https://www.digitaltruth.com/data.php?doc=filmdevsabc

As far as I know Apollo used exclusively Ektachrome colour slide film, not negative. They would have used the E-4 process.

True. However they did use B&W negative film, IIRC, Panatomic-X, and either 2475 or 2485 high speed recording film.

However the caveats I mentioned still apply. The E-4 process was phased out in 1976 due to its highly toxic chemicals (particularly the reversal agent tertiary butyl-amine boraner) and was replaced by the E-6 process, which used tin chloride.

Those clowns at Aulis used Kodak Ektachrome E100 and processed it E-6; Apollo used Ektachrome SO-168 and SO-121 and processed it E-4 - so not the same film, and not the same process either. The results WILL be different. 

[smartcooky]

I've developed thousands of rolls of film over the years ( I used to work in a minilab) and I could tell instantly what emulsion side vs. substrate side looks like. NO ONE familiar with developing film would make this mistake. This is intentional deceit.

Me too... I've worked in a minilab for 25 years (and owned for the last 18)