This Apollo CM window arrived today, and she is a beauty – incredibly flat and non-reflective and hard to photograph. Thanks Rocketeer!
I went for a weightless still life with a fading reflection on the Apollo 14 landing site…
From analysis with Spaceaholic, this is a Block 1 micrometerorite panel, the outermost layer of the observation window on the Command Module.
The Rocketeer’s uncle used to work for North American Rockwell, and he told me the background by phone: This was one of three spare windows, and he bought all three from a back lot garage sale offered to employees at the end of the Apollo program. The other windows were since stolen. They were “the only spares we had”, so they were not tied to any particular capsule or program. They were very flat and smooth to 1 micron so they could be etched with a line that could assist in reentry horizon alignment (if all guidance systems failed, the etched line could be used to aim for the narrow reentry corridor). He was involved with post-flight capsule inspection. They also built two Rescue Command Modules, with seating for five, so they could end two astronauts up to rescue a possibly crippled mission with a crew of three. They had Saturn boosters ready to go with 72-hour notice.
Other space artifacts in the photo:
• Core Stem from the Lunar Surface Drill: a foot-long section of hollow core tube drill, used in training by the Apollo astronauts. Details below
• Apocryphal Gemini Flotation Ball: After Gus Grissom’s Mercury spacecraft Liberty Bell 7 sank after splashdown, Gus insisted on naming the Gemini spacecraft “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” When asked for a more respectable name, he offered “The Titanic”. The hollow and lightweight sphere here has been described in several auctions (example, another, discussion) as one of several flotation spheres to help maintain the Gemini spacecraft’s buoyancy. Why people would think this is a bit of a mystery. Anyone have direct experience with these? Perhaps the spheres were used for testing Cg (center of gravity) shifts on buoyancy, leading to the confusion. For the flight article, we turn to Page 224 of the 1968 GEMINI TECHNICAL SUMMARY report: “The flotation characteristics are a function of the cg location. To improve the flotation attitude, additional flotation material (styrofoam) was installed under the equipment in the side bays and inside the RCS.”
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