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Pictures from the Moon Pictures from the Moon www.gtc.org.uk This is the story of how one of the greatest moments in television came about – the transmission, 40 years ago, of live pictures from the Moon. It was truly... With thanks to NASA for all images unless specified The Greatest Outside Broadcast Ever by Clive North 22 Autumn 2008 ZERB Pete Conrad with the Apollo 12 Unified S-Band Antenna www.gtc.org.uk Pictures from the Moon Most people, when they think of the Sam recalls, “When I finally saw the The worldwide TV audience saw these Early Apollo cameras were designed Apollo 11 Moon landings and man’s to produce a good B&W picture for television come on and there was real-time, scan-converted images first steps onto the lunar surface, will the harsh lunar conditions Neil Armstrong coming down the but it wasn’t until years later that it recall the names of Neil Armstrong ladder – I looked at the image and was realised how much better the and Buzz Aldrin, and Neil’s famous thought ‘oh gosh, that’s really not a TV pictures would be if the original statement, “One small step for a man, good image’. It was black and white, telemetry tapes could be found and one giant leap for mankind.” it was streaky, noisy and hard to see, the slow-scan digitally converted but thinking about it now I see that to NTSC or PAL. The demodulated Those steps took place nearly 40 years Designing cameras for the Moon perhaps the mistiness or ghostliness slow-scan TV, along with the other ago now, on 20 July 1969, and ever Sam started designing cameras for of that image added a certain magical data, (voice, space suit parameters, since then we have had ingrained taking images from space with RCA quality to it.” etc) had all been recorded on 14- on our memories those amazing first (Radio Corporation of America) in track analogue data recorders at the moving pictures from another planet 1966. Television was not yet an Scan-converted image tracking stations on 14” diameter – Neil and Buzz’s first steps down from Apollo 11 reels of 1” wide telemetry tape. Those important part of the Apollo project, www.honeysucklecreek.net the ladder onto the dusty surface of hence the use of the so-called Unified tapes were an amazing 9200 feet the Moon. But there are two other S-Bend System, a communications long, ran at 120ips requiring changing names which GTC members may not system for transmitting messages every 15 minutes. know whose work is almost as closely to the Moon and for receiving data connected to those events as that of (biomedical and telemetry) and voice This realisation came about late the first astronauts to walk on the communications. It only allowed in 2003 when Australian Apollo Moon – those of Sam Russell and a very narrow bandwidth for a Convoluted route enthusiast Colin Mackellar saw Ed Fendell. television signal. Everyone saw those historic, indistinct Polaroid pictures taken of the and noisy pictures of Neil Armstrong’s Honeysuckle Creek tracking station monitors during the transmission Sam with Lunar Rover camera replica first steps on the Moon but not many realised that the signal quality had and, in 2004, started asking questions been badly degraded en route from about the telemetry tapes containing Australia to the Unites States rather the slow-scan TV signals. than on its way from the Moon to Earth. Apollo 11’s historic landing on In mid-2005, some Super 8 footage the Moon came when much of the emerged which underlined the United States was in darkness and difference in quality of the pictures the signal from the lunar module seen on the Australian monitors could only be received at two remote compared with the broadcast pictures. tracking stations – at Honeysuckle The informal search for the tapes Creek and a radio observatory at was stepped up and by August 2006 Sam was responsible for overseeing NASA budgeted only 500kHz for Parkes, both in Australia. NASA had given their support for the design and construction of the television from the lunar surface, searching their vast archives. As yet, video cameras that went to the Moon, much less than the 4.5MHz standard The routing of the signals from the the tapes have still to emerge - but along with the means of getting used for commercial broadcast Honeysuckle Creek 85-foot dish when they do those images could be their pictures back to the waiting television at the time. The NASA station was via the ground lines of sensational… billions of viewers on Earth. Ed was mission planners called for a lunar the Australian Postal Department to a the man whose hands were on the camera which could cope with this COMSAT ground station, then to the At the beginning of the American controls in Houston guiding the limitation by using a non-standard Intelsat IV satellite over the Pacific space programme the importance of cameras remotely to send back those slow-scan format of 320 lines back to COMSAT in California, and television had been underestimated unforgettable images. resolution at 10 frames per second then via AT&T to Houston where it but it was not long before there was (instead of the US TV standard of 525 was converted to NTSC and released sustained pressure on NASA to enable Sam, now 75, but still working in his lines at 30 fps). to the TV network pool. the public to watch the flights in own video production company, lives real time. There were also continual in West Trenton, New Jersey and A team at the Westinghouse This real-time scan-converted TV efforts to upgrade the quality of the Ed, now retired, also 75, lives close Defense and Space Center spent was recorded on commercial video television coverage. As a result, Apollo to his former employer, NASA, at five years developing a camera recorders at the Honeysuckle Creek 12 had on board an extraordinary Houston, Texas. that was capable of producing a and Goldstone tracking stations, at colour video camera. very good black and white picture the Sydney Video switching centre, Colour wheel Not long after the launch on 4 in the lunar environment with its as backup, and also at Houston on October 1957 of the world’s first extreme temperatures and harsh quad videotape and 16mm film. spaceflight, the Russian Sputnik lighting conditions. (Later it was found that a receiver satellite, Sam found himself on a at one particular station could cause project with Airborne Instruments On Apollo 11, the first of the picture tearing: a particular model Laboratory, Long Island, working in missions to actually land on the of processing amplifier could convert aviation electronics and radar. This Moon, this black and white camera a slightly noisy received signal into soon led to a job with the Flight was positioned on one of the lunar a very objectionable streaky and Control Division of NASA working as module’s legs to give a view of the noisy image. In addition, some of the BERT SOLTOFF a flight controller on John Shepherd’s astronauts taking their first steps electronic filters used could cause Gemini III mission - the Americans’ down the ladder. ringing or ghosting in the image first spacewalk. – all potential glitches which were subsequently fixed.) Autumn 2008 ZERB 23 Pictures from the Moon www.gtc.org.uk Creating a colour image no television coverage other than the astronauts of course have to wear spacesuits of the astronauts appeared Within that camera, from RCA, was very beginnings of that mission. bright, white spacesuits to reflect ‘bloomy and blurred’. Changes were a monochrome sensor coupled to a solar energy. “So you have a scene made to the pickup tube technology precision machined gear wheel with Failed Apollo 12 camera which is truly black and white, and but the main approach was to prevent six cutouts in which three pairs of red, the need is for the camera to render damage to the tube by keeping the green, and blue colour filters were an image that does justice to both the camera from being pointed directly at mounted. The filters were shaped so astronauts and the environment they the Sun. that they would evenly expose the are working in. We need to see clearly sensor during each of the wheel’s what the astronaut is doing and also Features from the more advanced 10 revolutions per second, locked to what he is working with – that was studio cameras that RCA were the field scanning rate. Successive TV one of the big challenges,” says Sam. developing were also being fields recorded images of red, then incorporated into the new design green, then blue components. Back There were other challenges to and NASA changed the cameras’ on Earth, a scan converter stored the overcome too – the camera had specification accordingly. “It was like fields on analogue disk drives and mechanical moving parts that had being in a fishbowl,” recalls Sam. from them, generated NTSC video. to work, both in a vacuum and in “Everyone, NASA management and the Moon’s one-sixth gravity. Lunar RCA top management, were All this allowed a simple and reliable dust could also get into the camera’s watching us!” camera design. At the time of the gearing. In addition, there was the Apollo 15 Lunar Rover camera Apollo missions, CCDs were hardly Following this, RCA developed the problem of temperature control – more than laboratory curios and the Silicon Intensifier Target tube which where the Sun was beating down on prospect of shrinking a three-tube, had just the characteristics NASA the camera the temperature would broadcast quality camera to shoebox needed for the mission.
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