Author Topic: Apollo 17 in real time  (Read 26879 times)

Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #15 on: April 02, 2015, 03:29:03 PM »
So was it someone on this forum who asked Gene Cernan the Apollo hoax question at the Toronto Hot Docs screening of The Last Man on the Moon? Cernan nailed the answer. I paraphrase, but it was something along the lines of "if you think Apollo was a hoax, you're missing out on one of the greatest stories of human achievement in history."

It was a great honour for me to meet him.

Ben

I have this quote from him on my site:

Quote
"The other thing about it is, this conspiracy theory, is [that] the truth needs no defense. I don't have to respond to that. I stepped on the surface of the Moon, and I don't really need to defend that, because I know it happened, I know I did."

Eugene Cernan, Oral History   

Great that you met him :) I ambushed him at Sheffield and shook his hand :D

Did you enjoy the film?

Offline bfeist

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2015, 05:47:58 PM »
The film was truly spectacular. It was a very personal portrait of Cernan and the filmmaker did a tremendous job wrapping the space race within the context of the time and Cernan's life. You were left with a feeling that you know something about what felt like to be one of the astronauts at that time.

I hope they get a distribution deal. I think this is a film similar to Senna, which swept the awards of several film festivals in 2010. You don't have to be an auto racing enthusiast to enjoy Senna. It stands on its own as a film. Similarly, you don't have to be a space enthusiast to connect with this film. It's extremely well-told. Not to mention how gorgeous it was. Much of the original mission material was re-transferred specifically for the film, and there is some very well place special effects used to depict moments such as Gemini and the LM extraction on Apollo 10.

Ben

Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #17 on: April 03, 2015, 05:11:31 AM »
At its heart the film is an old man's reflections on his time on Earth, what he has done with his life and how he affected those around him. When that old man has done some of the most spectacular and amazing things imaginable you have (in the right hands) the ingredients for a great film - which I think it is. I found it very moving in places. I was also impressed by the CGI, which showed some familiar scenes and events in a new way and extremely well :)

Did you manage to explain to him what you'd done?

Offline bfeist

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #18 on: April 03, 2015, 08:38:40 AM »
I can barely explain it on a good day :) I knew I would have that problem and little time, so I wrote a letter and passed it to him when I said goodbye. I said something along the lines of, "I've been working on a project for a long time on Apollo 17, but I won't take up your time up now. Here's a letter that explains it, I hope you can take a look later on." He said thank you and put the letter in his suit pocket. That's all I could hope for.

Offline bfeist

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #19 on: September 08, 2015, 04:55:58 PM »
Hi everyone, another update on my #apollo17 project. It's been a long summer, but time to get cracking again. http://benfeist.com/digitizing-apollo-17-part-14-a-fantastic-reception/

Offline bknight

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #20 on: September 08, 2015, 05:23:59 PM »
That sounds like a great time you had with him.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline smartcooky

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #21 on: September 14, 2015, 08:21:36 PM »
A couple of weeks back, I decided to try to generate some interest and discussion about Apollo by making this and putting it up on the front of the counter in my shop.



I explain to people about the LRO and KAGUYA and how they have photographed the moon from close up. Some interesting comments have been made, the most common of which has been words to the effect that..."so they really did send men to the moon!?" . Apart from one marginal HB (and he was just a bit creepy TBH) who just thought was all faked, the majority of the comments have been positive.
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline smartcooky

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #22 on: September 17, 2015, 04:03:07 PM »
onebigmonkey

I know that you know a lot about the ALSJ and the photographs taken by the Apollo astronauts. So tell me, how would I go about locating a particular photo taken at a particular time? I have looked through the ALSJ index, and I can't seem to find anything that tells me how to locate a photo (that might not even exist) given only the approximate time it was taken.

The reason I ask is that last night, I watched a documentary on the History Channel about Apollo 17 (Last Men on the Moon) and near the end, after the launch (where they talk about the NASA technician who filmed the launch by anticipating the six second signal delay to pan the LRV camera upwards following the LM as it launched) there was a brief glimpse of video looking down from the LM at the lunar surface, and I could see the patterns of the LRV tracks and astronaut footprints that are apparent in the LRO photo I posted in my previous post. This would have been shortly after 188:01:30.

Here is a screen grab from my TV of what I am talking about....



This does appear to be actual A17 footage and not stock footage from another mission because the large crater to the bottom left of the descent stage (7 o'clock) and the tracks to its right, and the two dark patches to the right of the descent stage (4 o'clock) and the tracks beyond it seem to line up quite nicely with the photo I posted.

I was wondering if there might be a better, clearer shot of this.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2015, 04:08:20 PM by smartcooky »
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline Bryanpoprobson

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #23 on: September 17, 2015, 04:36:30 PM »
https://archive.org/details/Apollo1716mmonboardfilm

From 1Hr approx.. If that's what you're after?
"Wise men speak because they have something to say!" "Fools speak, because they have to say something!" (Plato)

Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #24 on: September 17, 2015, 04:47:30 PM »
A lot of the video footage on the ALSJ isn't the best quality - youtube often provides better sources!

On of the best sources for the 16mm video footage is http://archive.org - here, for example, is one of the Apollo 17 16mm pages:

https://archive.org/details/Apollo1716mmonboardfilm

(which Brianpoprobson also found while I was writing this!)

and you're absolutely right - it is Apollo 17.

As far as tracking down images, it's really just familiarity. I've spent more time than I care to think about ploughing through transcripts, mission reports and timelines, photo indexes, and the various repositories of images and film. If it's an image I'm looking for, I tend to head for the Apollo Image Atlas,

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/

as they are all laid out in a grid for quick examination. If they don't have a high quality one, you can usually find better ones at the ALSJ or AFJ, or even higher resolution TIFF images at archive.org or the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #25 on: September 17, 2015, 05:36:06 PM »
Just to add (and it's been bugging me all evening!), but there is a colour version of that still (or one like it from the sequence)  in the Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report (page 4-27). The online version isn't clear, but the one in my actual paper copy is clear enough.


Offline bknight

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #26 on: September 17, 2015, 05:43:47 PM »
To your knowledge, are all the images listed in the database?
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline bknight

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #27 on: September 17, 2015, 10:55:10 PM »
I just spent the last couple of hours reviewing the images from A15 and A16.  I must say that the crew of A16 did better photo sessions than the crew of A15.  When I heard there were many images that were not perfect, I really had no idea that so many were in that shape.  Now when I hear one of the HB's talk about the thousands of pictures that were perfect, I can honesty tell them t go check the records.
There is a couple of images  that maybe someone may tell me what they are.
You won't find it in ALSJ, however, the image is on the slideshow A16-124-19916.
I can't figure it out.

EDIT:  If all these images are counted in the overall number of images, then Jack White never looked at many of them, because at least 25% of the A15 and A16 images are taken in Lunar orbit.  Just in case someone raises this allegation.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2015, 11:24:50 PM by bknight »
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline smartcooky

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #28 on: September 18, 2015, 08:52:36 AM »
https://archive.org/details/Apollo1716mmonboardfilm

From 1Hr approx.. If that's what you're after?

I was rather hoping for a photograph but I guess the 16mm camera is all the launch would have been taken on; too busy lifting off to take photos.

Still, it is more than what was shown on the doco.


Thanks guys

If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: Apollo 17 in real time
« Reply #29 on: September 18, 2015, 08:53:02 AM »
To your knowledge, are all the images listed in the database?

The list of which magazines were used are complete, but not every magazine is available, for whatever reason. No doubt they are chock full of aliens, astronauts sat around smoking on set etc etc.

The missing ones tend to relate to orbital science or specific experiments, such as the Hycon images Awe130 was banging on about from Apollo 14, or the 35mm photos taken by Apollo 15 of stellar targets.

Isolated examples of these images do appear in scientific and technical reports, so they were processed, but they haven't been scanned by anyone for the modern age.

Your mystery image from Apollo 16 is listed in the Apollo Image Atlas as 'Gray Scale', so it's likely that that one, and others like it, were taken for calibration purposes to help with analysing other images on the magazine.

I've heard Marcus Allen claim that 32000 images were taken on the moon (and he specifically uses the word 'on'), but this is way over the actual total of all images taken (the Image Atlas cites 25000 lunar images including Metric and Panoramic camera images). Most of the images are taken in lunar orbit, and a substantial number in LEO and cislunar space. The majority of surface images in Apollo 15-17 were taken during LRV traverses.

Another hefty chunk accounts for photographs of samples and or experiments 'in situ' and 'locator shots' to give a context for samples and experiments. Very few Apollo lunar surface images are what would be described as 'tourist' or 'opportunist' shots that average HB expects, mostly because the film budgets were very carefully worked out in advance.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2015, 08:55:31 AM by onebigmonkey »