The Camera That Went To The Moon And Changed How We See It

NPR ^ | July 13, 2019 | Scott Neuman

[ops33]

Actually, Zeiss continued to be manufactured in both East and West Germany. Like several German companies after WW2, there was an East German version and a West German version. The East German version was marketed as Zeiss Jena. In the mid-80’s I was stationed in West Berlin and bought numerous East German Zeiss binoculars for gifts for family and friends.

[Waverunner]

We moved to Eau Gallie Florida in 1961.
My dad worked in the machine shop of an old german who built optical tracking gear for cape Canaveral.
Our next door neighbor worked as a draftsman at the Cape, and eventually ended up on the Crawler project from inception until his retirement. His son, my oldest friend is an FSU pol sci major, who is a life long democrat. I’m a UF materials engineering guy who is conservative and independent. One reasons we have stayed friends for 58 years. comic books and the space program. We can talk and disagree about anything, but remain friends. It’s too bad the rest of the world’s not that way.

[Sgt_Schultze]

According to this, Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975. Visionary in technology, but not, apparently, in its full utility.

[Hootowl99]

Thanks....

I did not know that but it doesn’t completely surprise me.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

What a fascinating article about a seemingly mundane part of the space program. Thanks for posting this.

Amazing that Wally Shirra went shopping for his own camera and chose a Hasselblad. It sounds like some unknown camera salesman made the recommendation to him. I hope he got reimbursed — they have always been incredibly expensive.

I always thought Hasselblad was a German camera.

[PapaBear3625]

Its amazing that back then, an astronaut walks into a photography shop, engineers make a few modifications, and it works fine. Nowadays, NASA and Fed.gov probably have a contract with Raytheon or Lockheed for $15 million to make a “space camera” for the next manned space program - whenever the hell that happens again.

Meanwhile, SpaceX can still grab whatever off-the-shelf gear and not bother with complex procurement contracts.

This is why the best future will be for NASA to get out of design/building and for the government to just contract with private firms to "get X amount of gear to orbit".

[Sharkfish]

Thanks for posting. Very interesting.

[sparklite2]

Actually, Kodak produced the first digital camera,
then decided there wasn’t enough of a market for it.
This was in 1975 and the camera weighed eight pounds.

[a fool in paradise]

If you read the article “off the shelf” didn’t suit the purpose of the flight. Modifications were made to the camera and subsequently Hasselblad reached out to work with NASA on designing something suited to their needs.

[PapaBear3625]

If you read what I quoted, "Its amazing that back then, an astronaut walks into a photography shop, engineers make a few modifications, and it works fine. , yes I did read that part.

And my point is that it's WAY different from a typical government contract demanding a highly customized solution, which adds a huge amount of cost due to bureaucratic overhead.