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."
_Only_ camera? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure. 'cept of course the one on Surveyor 3 [wikipedia.org] that Apollo 12 brought back. The one that famously (but, I now see, apparently controversially) had viable bacteria [wikipedia.org] in it after 2.5 years on the moon.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Our first act on the moon (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's litter.
Hey, someone has to think of the future space archaeologists!
"It seems our hive minds were not intelligently designed, but began on a distant moon emerging from strange complex life forms as fecal bacteria from their anus."
Re:Often? (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually yes, each camera had exactly 1 frame of film in it. you took a photo, pulled the back and threw the camera away. By the time we were ready for Apollow 18 they invented fitting more than 1 frame of film in a camera at NASA, this is why skylab was not riddled with discarded cameras.