🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1398@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM> johnson@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM (Wayne D. T. Johnson) writes:
>In article <1188@bcd-dyn.UUCP> dbp@bcd-dyn.UUCP (dbp) writes:
>>
>>
>>I watched the CBS special about Apollo 11 last night.  
>>(Thanks to whoever posted the notice; I wouldn't have known 
>>about it otherwise.)  Can anybody answer two questions?
>>
>The one thing that stuck me was the pictures of the LEM lifting off.  And
>in color at that.  If I remember right, the first color TV camera was on
>Apollo 12, and I thing this was also the first time that they left the 
>camera on for lift off.
>-- 

The Apollo 12 camera was burned out by Al Bean about 45 minutes into the
EVA. Even had the camera lasted, it could not have shown the liftoff since
it was powered by the LM, and had no remote control facility. The first
liftoff views came from Apollo 15 since the TV was controlled by earth, and
being on the rover it was completely independent  of the LM.

Due to Bean's screwup, Apollo 13 and 14 carried a backup black and white
camera (similar to the Apollo 11 model), and were instructed to cover
up the lens whenever it was moved. The thing I wonder about is why no-one
caught Bean's error before it was too late. It took about 25 or 30 seconds
before it was killed, plenty of time for someone on the ground to say
"hey you idiot, aim the camera down!!". What was interesting is that
at one point after the burnout there was a brief flash of the LM that
was visible.

On the Emmy awards later on, the crew was given a special award, and
on it was inscribed something like "never before have so many watched
for so long for so little". 

The Apollo 12 crew was known to be rather clumsy. In "Chariots for
Apollo" they told about a sim in a real LM on the ground with Bean and
Conrad. The LM's cabin was banged around pretty bad. Whereas, I think
it was the Apollo 9 crew, which were so careful they left the cabin neater
then when they arrived.




          *** mike (still looking for a publisher) smithwick ***

"Los Angeles : Where neon goes to die"
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]