𝙇𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙧 𝙊𝙧𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙍𝙤𝙤𝙢 A fun theme room with elements […]

𝙇𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙧 𝙊𝙧𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙍𝙤𝙤𝙢

A fun theme room with elements of the incredible Lunar Orbiter spacecraft, and original lunar images recovered from the “lost tapes” in great detail. Before Apollo, the U.S. flew robotic satellites around the moon carrying an ingenious analog film imaging system — long before digital cameras. The film was moved during exposure to compensate for the spacecraft velocity, which was estimated by an electro-optical sensor. The film had to be developed onboard the satellite in the onboard dark room (since the satellite would not return to Earth). The film was then raster scanned with a 6.5 micron beam and transmitted back to Earth with the dish antenna. (see diagrams on this in the comments below)!

The solar panel is a work of art, a patchwork cut from the 1″ silicon wafers of the 60’s, and the Agena engine is quite rare. It was originally developed for the Corona spy sat program (a spin-off of 𝘗𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘳, the nation’s first — albeit secret — satellite program).

None of the original Lunar Orbiter photos were released to the public. In every NASA press release, they showed a degraded photo of a photo. It was the Cold War period, and the U.S. did not want the Soviets to know how good our spy sat camera resolution really was. My son spotted a pirate flag in the window of an abandoned McDonalds at NASA Ames, and we found the most amazing techno-archaeology program led by Dennis Wingo within, recovering the images in full detail: https://flic.kr/p/5om42y