The Mystery of the 'Only Camera To Come Back From the Moon' 54
Daniel_Stuckey writes:
"After a furious bidding war in Vienna on Saturday, a Japanese camera collector has bought a Hasselblad camera for $910,000 in a record-setting auction of what's been widely called the 'only camera to come back from the moon.' But contrary to claims repeated across the Internet on Monday, this isn't the only camera to come back from the moon. In fact, some think it may have never landed on the moon at all. And because of rules surrounding most NASA property, its sale may actually violate U.S. law. One thing we know: the 70mm Hasselblad 500 is one of fourteen cutting-edge cameras that astronauts used in orbit around the moon and on the lunar surface during the Apollo program. All of the images we have from those moon missions were taken by these machines, which were either mounted inside the command module that circled the moon or were attached to space suits at the chest. This particular camera was, reports the Verge, among many other sources, 'used on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971,' and 'is special in the fact that it's returned to Earth.' That's because astronauts were often instructed to jettison their cameras on the lunar surface in order to save precious kilograms during the return trip."
Re:Our first act on the moon (Score:3, Informative)
Considering that astronauts literally left their shit all over the place [youtube.com], litter like a slightly used camera is no big deal at all. Dumping radioactive waste [wikipedia.org] on the Moon in the form of RTGs that are still pumping out energy even today should give extra brownie points. It should be pointed out that other countries [wikipedia.org] have also dumped trash on the Moon, not to mention other worlds in the Solar System too.