Corona and Keyhole satellite imagery and the Apollo Detectives

[onebigmonkey]

The AD's latest offering deserves not to be buried in the compendium of their stupidity I've posted elsewhere.

A quick precis:

The always excellent Dave McKeegan and the Apollo detectives have both posted videos addressing the issue of the use of film in satellites, and whether or not they require pressurising to avoid fatally damaging the film beyond use. McKeegan points out that while some satellites used pressurised film systms, many did not. and that the use of pressurisation was not for the welfare of the film. The ADs, on the other hand, have latched on to Discoverer 14 - the first successful aerial film retrieval mission of the Corona program. All parties agree that no pressurisation was involved there.

Discoverer 14 was launched on August 18 1960, and film was recovered the following day in the Pacific after 17 orbits.

The ADs, which in this instance is Marcus Allen, Robert Williams and Jarrah, have found this image taken by Discoverer:



It's of  Mys Shmidta airfield in easternmost Russia, a stone's throw from Alaska (the image here is upside down).

Lawks a Lawdy, they cry - look how degraded and terrible the image is, you can't make any kind of detail at all! This, they conclude, can only be as a direct result of radiation and exposure to vacuum, and therefore Apollo films would have suffered the same fate.

No.

The image they've found is terrible, but if they knew a little bit more about the subject they'd know there are better quality ones available, and that the image isn't all of the actual photo.

Fortunately for us, this website:

https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

has all the declassified images from Discoverer 4 (and many others) available for download. As an aside, I've used theis site to get Landsat-1 images showing matching ice flows visble in Apollo 17's Blue Marble).

Here's the complete image from which theirs is derived:



I've marked on the approximate area concerned - roughly 20 miles square in a swathe covering (at a conservatice estimate) roughly 800 miles long and 100 miles wide.

It's interesting to note the footprint of that image compared with the ones taken either side of it covering the area to the north-west.



It's odd that this is an oblique image and covering a much wider area - deliberate attempt to capture the airfield, or just a glitch? Just for info, here are the ther swathes covering the USSR on that mission:



So, how do modern scans of the image compare? Here's the entire width of the photograph:



and here's the same area:



It's very obviously much better quality than the one on which the ADs are relying. You can even get closer in:



One of the things they complain about is the lack of detail in the image - the lack of roads and so on. It's the arse end of nowhere chaps there's nothing there.

Now, the labelling system of the images suggests that this photo was taken on the second orbit. If the ADs are correct, then images taken in much later orbits will be even worse! OK, how about this one, taken on orbit 14 showing a 180 mile by 12 strip in the American Midwest (ID    DS009009014DV061).





There should be nothing in here right?




Oh! Seems that the images have got better over time!

All the ADs are seeing in the image they've looked at is film grain - a grainy scan of a small part of a much larger image taken on the first successful mission of its kind.

It does not prove their point at all. This cannister has exposed its film to space longer than any Apollo Hasselblad magazine. They were claiming that this supposed damage was from something that wasn't that vacuumy - I'm guessing now it won't have been vacuumy enough.

They can posture all they like about pressurised film systems like lunar orbiter (where the pressure was there to protect the developing process, not the film), they can pretend the Soviet film return missions didn't happen, but they have no evidence other than their own deeply flawed "experiment" that the film used in Apollo, be it in Hasselblads, or the Metric and Panoramic cameras, wouldn't have worked.

[Peter B]

I just watched Dave McKeegan's latest video in which he dismantles the claims of the Apollo Detectives. It's hard to see how the ADs can be so badly mistaken in their experiments and claims, leading to my conclusion that they're simply grifting at this point.

[TimberWolfAu]

The thing that always annoyed me with the whole "film needs to be pressurised", is that the same people making these claims usually have no problem saying the Project Gemini and Project Mercury flights happened. You know, those manned flights that didn't use pressurised film cannisters for the cameras. If a film camera is working in low Earth orbit, it's working on the moon. Hell, assuming my understanding here is correct, even the "radiation" issue for the film is pretty close to being the same between low Earth orbit and the lunar surface.

[onebigmonkey]

It's embarrassing how ill-informed they are, and how much they think ChatGPT is the be all and end all of information sources instead of a glorified garbage in garbage out info dump.

This book

https://www.cia.gov/resources/publications/corona-between-the-sun-and-the-earth/

suggests that the initial orbits experienced some issues and threatened to tumble out of control, wich may explain the odd angle and coverage of frame 58, compared with frames 57 and 59. This book

https://archive.org/details/eyeinskystoryofc0000unse/mode/1up

has a version of the airstrip image of comparable quality to the one I downloaded, along with many other very high resoltuion CORONA images.

I've also seen that image called "the first" one in took - it clearly isn't, but this source:

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/discoverer-xiv/

shows I've interpreted the naming convention correctly - the airstrip image is from the 2nd pass early in the mission. That source also mentions the number of previously unknown military sites that the mission was able to discover, despite the poor resolving power, like this one




of Kapsutin Yar Missile Test Range. Lots of detail there, despite it being taken 7 orbits later than the one they look at. I downloaded this myself, so I hope I got the right spot.

Later missions improved to be able to se objects 5-6 feet across, rather than the 35-40 or so feet in this one. All the information they need is out there, if they choose to put some actual effort in. Th AD video calls itself 'Part 1'. I wonder where part 2 will take us.

[onebigmonkey]

The thing that always annoyed me with the whole "film needs to be pressurised", is that the same people making these claims usually have no problem saying the Project Gemini and Project Mercury flights happened. You know, those manned flights that didn't use pressurised film cannisters for the cameras. If a film camera is working in low Earth orbit, it's working on the moon. Hell, assuming my understanding here is correct, even the "radiation" issue for the film is pretty close to being the same between low Earth orbit and the lunar surface.

That's exactly the point McKeegan made in one of his earlier videos - the AD seemingly have no issue with those missions, but conveniently gloss over them. Their response was mostly to go for the ad hominem approach, claiming (without no evidence at all) that Dave uses digital cameras and doesn't know about film, and that he needs to get hold of the SO film to prove his point - the irony of that escapes them, given theat all they did was test off the shelf film and produced results that any competent film developer could resolve.

[onebigmonkey]

Dwayne Day's book linked to above provides some interesting titbits.

As with all things COld War, the USSR were developing identical systems in parallel with the US. Their ZENIT satellites, the CORONA equivalent, went for pressurised vessels:

"Unlike their American counterparts, Soviet engineers traditionally preferred to shield the most sensitive systems of their satellites from the space vacuum. Creating an artificial atmosphere inside pressurized containers was easier than designing new vacuum-rated equipment. While ensuring higher reliability, this approach had a price, since the resulting satellites were larger and heavier."

So, while there was an up front cost for the US developing vacuum rated gear, the Soviet approach gave heavier payloads and more complex systems. A key point is that CORONA systems were tested in vacuums! It's also worth mentioning the involvement of Fairchild ITEK in the program, who were behind the Apollo Panoramic camera.

CORONA satellites had another issue which was static discharge, caused by the large number of rollers involved in moving film around in a confined space at speed. It was largely resolved by improving the roller design, but often the first few frames in each reel were ruined.

Over and over in the book, and others, problems with acetate based film in a vacuum were resolved completely with the use of new, thinner, polyster based ones.

[onebigmonkey]

The detectives are currently goading McKeegan in the comments section of his video. They are demanding he does a live stream with them, because he's done it with flat earthers so why not them. AFAIK, he's done livestreams with a former flat earther, discussing Apollo photography. Appearing on a livestream is a favourite demand of theirs, as if somehow it proves something. It does not. The evidence is there, live or not. Deal with it. You are not in charge of anything, you do not get to make demands of anyone. Just make your case - it doesn't have to be in person.

They are further insisting he sends off to NASA for Apollo negatives (sic) to test in a vacuum, because that's an easy thing to do. So easy, in fact, that they haven't bothered to do it themselves.

They are also criticising him on the basis that "all he has are pictures from the internet", which, given that the video I'm commenting on here consisted entirely of "an image from the internet", and them interrogating ChatGTP, on the internet, is a bit rich.

Hypocrites, all of them.

They are promising more revelations in their upcoming livestream. I look forward to it consisting of nothing from the internet.

[bknight]

It will be a relief for truth when, Marcus Allen dies.  He has been a grifter blowing with whatever money winds blow from Apollo believer to Apollo denier.  The man has no scruples.

[Ranb]

They are further insisting he sends off to NASA for Apollo negatives (sic) to test in a vacuum, because that's an easy thing to do. So easy, in fact, that they haven't bothered to do it themselves.

Wasn't every single negative used on the lunar surface and in the LM already exposed to a vacuum?  What good would it do to "test" them again?  Surely if the film was degraded by exposure to a vacuum, it would show on the prints?

[onebigmonkey]

I can only assume they want the same SO film. It's conspiraloon SOP: "I demand evidence I know you can't give me, therefore I am right'.

[Obviousman]

It will be a relief for truth when, Marcus Allen dies.  He has been a grifter blowing with whatever money winds blow from Apollo believer to Apollo denier.  The man has no scruples.

Well said. They are there to snare disciples, not to explore the truth.

[onebigmonkey]

All Allen has is a stock collection of well worn phrases and facts that he can pepper a conversation with in order to sound more educated about it than he actually is.

Anyway, back to the substance of the AD video. In amongst the personal incredulity, zoo running methology, and bizarre claims (they are amazed that they can't see snow, and that must be because the snow looks black from radiation damaged film, not because it's August), there are basic factual errors.

Jarrah claims that the lunar orbiter images transmitted to the public were photographed off TV screens, and it was only when you got the LOIRP images that high quality ones. Not true, and any one of the many Lunar Oribter documents available would have told him otherwise if he'd read them.

Images scanned by the probes in lunar orbit sent their signals to Earth. The signal was then exposed on 35mm film strips. Those strips were then assembled and photographed, eg from https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunarorbiter/documents/LO_DUNOTES.pdf.

“The video signal received on Earth was fed into the ground reconstruction electronics (GRE) where it was converted into an intensity modulated line on the face of a cathode ray tube. This line was used to expose 35-mm in a continuous motion camera to reconstruct the framelets…the video signal was also recorded on magnetic tapes which were subsequently used to make additional 35-mm framelets.”

The attached shows an example.

[onebigmonkey]

And just to demonstrate that actually yes, they did test stuff:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730009710/downloads/19730009710.pdf

"When cameras and films must operate in high vacuum, camera lubricants are required which will not poison the vacuum environment if the camera is exposed to the full vacuum. Cameras have been used directly in vacuum, and in certain applications they have been enclosed in housings in which a partial pressure of air or nitrogen has been  maintained. Few problems occur with respect to film exposure or its sensitivity in a vacuum. The major problems have been the generation of static, particularly with the high-speed cameras. In general, these problems are avoided by correct selection and treatment of film."

and

"In planning the Apollo missions, a hermetically sealed magazine was considered to maintain a suitable environment for the film. Many years of experience had included the use of photographic film in vacuum systems such as electron microscopy and electron beam recording, and this experience indicated that the disturbance caused by the vacuum environment should not prove too serious. This was confirmed by tests of extended exposure to vacuum conditions, and the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions were carried out with a conventional unsealed magazine. Thus the film was exposed to the high-vacuum lunar environment. The results of these missions substantiated the validity of this decision and of the earlier observations."

And in several experiments on film in a vacuum chamber reported here:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19680010273/downloads/19680010273.pdf

No significant impacts on the films were found.

[Peter B]

And just to demonstrate that actually yes, they did test stuff...

This reminds me of something I see so often from hoax believers: they seem to have no awareness of the idea that NASA would test equipment in realistic environmental conditions to look for issues they needed to address.

"How did they know [item X] would work in the heat/cold/vacuum?"

"Um, they literally tested it in heat/cold/vacuum. It's not like they sent untested equipment off with the astronauts and hoped for the best."

= = = =

It's interesting that I find this attitude more widely, that people will ask a question thinking they've made some sort of gotcha point. Yet it's clear that they've done no research.

One example I've seen recently is on Dave McKeegan's year-old video "People think Apollo didn't have enough fuel to get to the Moon." There's been a rash of comments in the last few days from people all saying "Elon Musk says they'll need 8 rockets to get a mission to the Moon." It's clear in this case that they're just parroting a claim made by Bart Sibrel on a Danny Jones video. It's just as clear they're completely unaware of the differences between Apollo and Artemis.

Similarly, the number of people who ask how the lunar rover was carried to the Moon, or how the liftoff of the Apollo 17 was videoed, without making even the most cursory search to find out, is somewhere between amusing and disturbing.

But I also see this 'reflex skepticism' in what might seem like fairly mundane subjects. I recently saw a video short labelled 'How the Drip Rifle worked' describing a process to fire a bolt-action rifle without a human pulling the trigger - by having water drip into a can which hung by string from the trigger. Comment after comment says "but as it's a bolt action rifle it will only fire once", as though they've made some killer refutation. But all people would need to do is search the term 'drip rifle' to find out where it was used, and why (during the evacuation of Gallipoli in December 1915).

[onebigmonkey]

Another aspect of that argument is the idea that if something isn't on the Internet it doesn't exist. They find it difficult to comprehend that there are these old fashioned paper things that people just haven't got round to digitising yet, or even that the original documents were of such esoteric and specialist interest they weren't deemed worthy of shelf space, let alone the time it takes to scan them. Their purpose was served, there's no need to keep them.

At least this topic provided an interesting diversion where I was able to learn something, even if the catalyst for it aren't prepared to.