I wish the article got into more of the technical details behind how this actually worked. I find it absolutely jaw-droopingly incredible that they were able to shoot gigabytes of essentially IMAX-quality negatives, develop them in flight (which requires temperatures of around 20ºC for all of the materials involved—Edit: they didn't do this because it would've been too difficult, and ended up using a mostly dry development process. See Edit link), scan them(!!!), and then radio them back to the earth. I would find this amazing today, and all of this happened in the 1960s!
> "I would find this amazing today, and all of this happened in the 1960s!"
If bowling alleys didn't already exist... and you pitched me the idea of fully automated systems to collect and re-rack pins and return 15-lb balls to the player after each and every throw... I would probably say that's either impossible or at least impractical at scale.
19th and 20th century engineering is amazing. Today, if I can't conceive of writing it as a mobile app than I just shrug.
If you want a really fascinating story, check out faxes from the far side. [1] tl;dr The US sent spy balloons over the USSR, many of which were captured. For their probe to the "dark side" of the moon, the Soviets used this film which was processed in the satellite and then essentially faxed back to earth.
But, hey, Silicon Valley is really good at ad tech. :-)
The most amazing point about landing on the moon in 1969 is that they had to program everything with... negative timestamps. Of course it’s a joke but it highlights how early it was in the history of technology.
> images were locked away from the public as they would have revealed the superior technology of the USA’s spy satellite cameras
Whenever I read about 50-year-old government secrets being revealed, I wonder about all the things happening today we're not being told about -- that we'll learn about 50 years from today.
Looking at the Earthrise image, as another commenter pointed out, they didn't simply degrade the image, but they deliberately added vertical lines with differing brightness and gain, so it would appear that the film scanners on the Lunar Orbiter could scan only at a very low resolution.
To use an analogy: Suppose you request a secret document from the government under the Freedom of Information Act. They decide to give it to you, but they redact 99% of the material with black markers. Oh, but they also retype the entire document, without the blacked-out portions, so you think you received the whole thing. They even add staples, 3-hole punches, coffee cup stains, and creases to the paper before photocopying it. You get 1% of material, but you are convinced that you got the complete unaltered original.
I recently visited the FBI Museum/Tour at the FBI HQ in DC. There's a section where they talk about tech the FBI had in the 80s, including a camera they used for an undercover operation where they recorded some illegal shit going on in a hotel room.
You walk into a mock hotel room and even knowing the general vicinity of where the camera should be, struggle to find it. I flat out couldn't until a friend who works at the FBI told me - it was in the period on the artists signature of a piece of artwork in the room. A literal pinhole camera recording everything in the room more than 3 decades ago with pretty great quality.
I can't even fathom the technology they have today - there's no chance that'd be on the tour.
> I wonder about all the things happening today we're not being told about
Considering the usefulness of quantum computing for cracking ciphers, I wonder how far along development of that is and when we'll see it.
> The Lunar Orbiters never returned to Earth with the imagery. Instead, the Orbiter developed the 70mm film (yes film) and then raster scanned the negatives with a 5 micron spot (200 lines/mm resolution) and beamed the data back to Earth using lossless analog compression, which was yet to actually be patented by anyone.
Absolutely incredible! The level of complexity involved involved in space flight, along with the tight tolerances, continually impresses me when I consider the relative success of these missions.
Are there any details of this? Some of the documents imply it's simply FM modulated, no different from passing a tightly-focused B&W TV camera over the film.
I used to work at Ames in a facility a stone's throw from McMoon's (not singularity University hah).
Heard that the guys who worked on this stuff in there were super crochety. I went over there once to check out some old aerospace equipment they had hanging out in the back (I think it was some decrepit rocket engine), and they gave me a classic 'you kids get off my lawn speech' - until they found out that the friend I went with had a PhD in aeronotical engineering. They lightened up after that and we had a great conversation after that. What a wacky group.
I wanted to look at the actual files in question, they're purported to be at [1]. However, that just displays a 'file being migrated' message[2], and according to the internet archive it's been that way since 2016[3]...were the images lost after all?
Is there any instances of people claiming the government purposely edited the original images to make them lower quality back when they were first released?
I’m curious if anyone realized the government may be hiding their true capabilities.
Back then most people would have been supportive of that. If someone noticed they probably wouldn’t say anything for fear of blowing the governments cover.
I'd like to know more about that too. I can imagine that since the space race and cold war was in full fledge at the time, they neither wanted to give the Russians intel on the moon, nor let them in on their camera quality.
> After their use, the images were locked away from the public, as at the time they would have revealed the superior technology of the USA’s spy satellite cameras, which the orbiters cameras were designed from. Instead the images from that time were grainy and low resolution, made to be so by NASA.
Brilliant!
It states they used 70mm film which according to google is used for motion pictures, I assume a custom camera?
Reading about the equipment that they had to cobble together and keep running - reminds me that we keep losing the surplus places in the Bay Area where it would have conceivably been possible to find vintage parts.. weird stuff closed suddenly a few weeks sho, and I fear Halted is on its way out...
Those places should receive government support (as national heritage museums) or like the internet archive, big corporate sponsors (e.g. google and facebook and co can easily afford to keep those places around as a charity)
Great article. Digital is not always better, the technology was not there to outperform analogue tech.
I even wonder if a digital camera system nowadays can outperform this 2GB images, I mean how do you transfer that amount of data at this long range without loss?! Is that even possible?
Maybe this analogue picture compression is something which is still usable and valuable in long distance space transmission?
“Lossless” analogue transmission isn’t lossless. It’s just less lossy than the lossy forms of analogue transmission. As a very simplified example it’s really easy to modulate an analogue value in the frequency domain and maintain accuracy and dynamic range. Hence why FM stereo usually sounds pretty amazing still. It’s not terribly sensitive to environmental factors. However conversely AM sounds like crap.
Now we have digital protocols which are still sent on top of analogue signals (everything is analogue down at the bottom, even your CPU). We lose a tiny bit of dynamic range through compression in some circumstances but gain error correction, speed and the ability to recover signals from below the noise floor which means less power and more distance for the same power.
So no, digital is definitely the way.
As an amateur radio operator, some of us at least tend to play with very low powers. You can have a two way conversation 3000km+ with no more more than a watt but only if you use digital modes. One reason why Morse/CW is still popular; it’s a digital encoding.
> I mean how do you transfer that amount of data at this long range without loss?
Millions of people are watching the football via a satellite with a 80Mbit/sec DVB-S2 link from low earth orbit with consumer hardware. The system uses forward error correction to cover loss.
The main limiting factor of digital cameras is producing really big sensors, but if you want to photograph a stationary object like the moon it can be done readily by stitching lots of small images together.
People are currently getting excited about the picture quality of 4k and beyond. The old cinema film is, as I understand it, roughly equivalent of about 12k digital cinema. The way the work is quite different so it's not directly comparable.
Yes; one of the 3-letter agencies (I forget its name) has a satellite that can take gigapixel photos 20km (IIRC!) wide. Satellite sends 1EB (yes) per 24h of timelapse. Presumably said agency stores a few days/weeks of footage.
Put the input and the output of a Schmidt on an oscilloscope some time and tune across an HF band for weak digital (RTTY) signals. Then try adding crap to the input.
They'll pull perfect (digital, lossless) copy so far down in the (analog) noise that it can barely be heard. I'm sure there's better stuff these days (been a while).
I don’t get how that’s your takeaway from the article. The entire point was about the pains they went to in order to convert it from analog to digital because digital is absolutely the way to go here.
So in theory if someone built a robot and spacecraft, the original 70mm negatives could be retrieved from the moon and provide even higher resolution images?
One can simply wonder how much progress is being kept secret from the world due to nationalistic bullshit. To be honest, I'd not be surprised when in 2060, someone says "we had all the stuff in the Avengers movies as actual, real technology back then".
And one can only wonder if the hundreds of billions sunk into programs like the F35 or the European A400M program haven't simply been used to fund skunk works projects instead.
Makes me wonder how good the spy satellite pictures of the era were.
Wasn’t the technology behind the Corona satellites based on this tech? I wonder if the declassified pictures they release are the lower quality versions?
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|7 years ago|reply
Edit here's a little more information: http://www.moonviews.com/2012/06/lunar-orbiters-classified-h..., and the link from there to http://www.nro.gov/history/csnr/programs/docs/prog-hist-01.p... contains the technical details on the camera I was after. Amazing stuff.
[+] [-] StevePerkins|7 years ago|reply
If bowling alleys didn't already exist... and you pitched me the idea of fully automated systems to collect and re-rack pins and return 15-lb balls to the player after each and every throw... I would probably say that's either impossible or at least impractical at scale.
19th and 20th century engineering is amazing. Today, if I can't conceive of writing it as a mobile app than I just shrug.
[+] [-] dghughes|7 years ago|reply
This: https://www.damninteresting.com/nugget/the-fax-machines-of-t...
[+] [-] Aloha|7 years ago|reply
Polaroid had really high resolution, a mostly dry development process, and was simple enough to be done by anyone.
20th Century Engineering is amazing.
[+] [-] raverbashing|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply
But, hey, Silicon Valley is really good at ad tech. :-)
[1] https://www.damninteresting.com/faxes-from-the-far-side/
[+] [-] tajen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lurcio|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cantrevealname|7 years ago|reply
Whenever I read about 50-year-old government secrets being revealed, I wonder about all the things happening today we're not being told about -- that we'll learn about 50 years from today.
Looking at the Earthrise image, as another commenter pointed out, they didn't simply degrade the image, but they deliberately added vertical lines with differing brightness and gain, so it would appear that the film scanners on the Lunar Orbiter could scan only at a very low resolution.
To use an analogy: Suppose you request a secret document from the government under the Freedom of Information Act. They decide to give it to you, but they redact 99% of the material with black markers. Oh, but they also retype the entire document, without the blacked-out portions, so you think you received the whole thing. They even add staples, 3-hole punches, coffee cup stains, and creases to the paper before photocopying it. You get 1% of material, but you are convinced that you got the complete unaltered original.
[+] [-] jaypeg25|7 years ago|reply
You walk into a mock hotel room and even knowing the general vicinity of where the camera should be, struggle to find it. I flat out couldn't until a friend who works at the FBI told me - it was in the period on the artists signature of a piece of artwork in the room. A literal pinhole camera recording everything in the room more than 3 decades ago with pretty great quality.
I can't even fathom the technology they have today - there's no chance that'd be on the tour.
[+] [-] mmphosis|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HankB99|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pietroglyph|7 years ago|reply
Absolutely incredible! The level of complexity involved involved in space flight, along with the tight tolerances, continually impresses me when I consider the relative success of these missions.
[+] [-] skunkworker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|7 years ago|reply
Are there any details of this? Some of the documents imply it's simply FM modulated, no different from passing a tightly-focused B&W TV camera over the film.
[+] [-] ehead|7 years ago|reply
Heard that the guys who worked on this stuff in there were super crochety. I went over there once to check out some old aerospace equipment they had hanging out in the back (I think it was some decrepit rocket engine), and they gave me a classic 'you kids get off my lawn speech' - until they found out that the friend I went with had a PhD in aeronotical engineering. They lightened up after that and we had a great conversation after that. What a wacky group.
[+] [-] beamatronic|7 years ago|reply
http://www.numulosgatos.org/exhibitions-2/2016/9/23/mcmoons-...
[+] [-] earenndil|7 years ago|reply
1: https://loirp.arc.nasa.gov/loirp_gallery/
2: https://loirp.arc.nasa.gov/loirp/tiff/1101_H2.tif
3: https://web.archive.org/web/20161231201417/https://loirp.arc...
[+] [-] ajnin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gibbon1|7 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HRF8rQD1Vw
Short bit about the film. (cia.gov)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP33-02415...
[+] [-] theindieg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cofike|7 years ago|reply
I’m curious if anyone realized the government may be hiding their true capabilities.
[+] [-] ggg9990|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thelastidiot|7 years ago|reply
I didn't realize there were such a thing as an abandoned McDonalds.
[+] [-] LiamPa|7 years ago|reply
Brilliant!
It states they used 70mm film which according to google is used for motion pictures, I assume a custom camera?
[+] [-] salgernon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therealmarv|7 years ago|reply
Maybe this analogue picture compression is something which is still usable and valuable in long distance space transmission?
[+] [-] setquk|7 years ago|reply
Now we have digital protocols which are still sent on top of analogue signals (everything is analogue down at the bottom, even your CPU). We lose a tiny bit of dynamic range through compression in some circumstances but gain error correction, speed and the ability to recover signals from below the noise floor which means less power and more distance for the same power.
So no, digital is definitely the way.
As an amateur radio operator, some of us at least tend to play with very low powers. You can have a two way conversation 3000km+ with no more more than a watt but only if you use digital modes. One reason why Morse/CW is still popular; it’s a digital encoding.
[+] [-] dpe82|7 years ago|reply
Yes: https://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/october/nasa-laser-communica...
Also of interest, we see 0.5-4 mbit/s to Mars with the MRO: https://mars.nasa.gov/mro/mission/communications/
So it would take a few hours but one could transfer one of those images to/from Mars using tech that's been deployed for 13 years.
[+] [-] pjc50|7 years ago|reply
Millions of people are watching the football via a satellite with a 80Mbit/sec DVB-S2 link from low earth orbit with consumer hardware. The system uses forward error correction to cover loss.
The main limiting factor of digital cameras is producing really big sensors, but if you want to photograph a stationary object like the moon it can be done readily by stitching lots of small images together.
[+] [-] Steve44|7 years ago|reply
People are currently getting excited about the picture quality of 4k and beyond. The old cinema film is, as I understand it, roughly equivalent of about 12k digital cinema. The way the work is quite different so it's not directly comparable.
[+] [-] exikyut|7 years ago|reply
Ok I really need to go find that article...
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|7 years ago|reply
Put the input and the output of a Schmidt on an oscilloscope some time and tune across an HF band for weak digital (RTTY) signals. Then try adding crap to the input.
They'll pull perfect (digital, lossless) copy so far down in the (analog) noise that it can barely be heard. I'm sure there's better stuff these days (been a while).
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedberg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jl6|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mschuster91|7 years ago|reply
And one can only wonder if the hundreds of billions sunk into programs like the F35 or the European A400M program haven't simply been used to fund skunk works projects instead.
[+] [-] ggm|7 years ago|reply
Also that 200pixel/line scanner... Awesome. Basically a fax machine in space.
[+] [-] pilsetnieks|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tome|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spyder|7 years ago|reply
There are more videos on the same YouTube channel.
[+] [-] NietTim|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inamberclad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
Wasn’t the technology behind the Corona satellites based on this tech? I wonder if the declassified pictures they release are the lower quality versions?