Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Space Photos 238
krou writes "With a budget of £500, Robert Harrison used cheap parts, a weather balloon, some duct tape, a digital camera, and a GPS device to capture some great photos of the earth from space that resulted in NASA calling him to find out how he had done it. 'A guy phoned up who worked for NASA who was interested in how we took the pictures,' said Mr Harrison. 'He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars.' The details of his balloon are as follows: he used 'an ordinary Canon camera mounted on a weather balloon,' 'free software' that 'reprogrammed the camera to wake up every five minutes and take eight photographs and a video before switching off for a rest.' He also ensured the camera was 'wrapped in loft insulation' to make sure it could operate at the cold temperatures. The GPS device allowed him to pinpoint the balloon's location, and retrieve the camera when it fell down to earth attached to a small parachute."
Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
This is awesome, kudos to the guy who pulled it off.
Its also pretty sad that the engineers at NASA never thought of it...
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Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
In Chicago your warning would have been the burst of gunfire.
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"I've personally never heard anyone claim that Americans would be extraordinarily rude..."
Yes, but because of the sterotype: rudeness shows a certain degree of (cunning) intelligence. The stereotyped American is too dumb to be genuinely rude.
"In fact, that is a word that most of us would probably associate with the french."
And Parisian above all French.
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Any kind of box.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Insightful)
This is awesome, kudos to the guy who pulled it off.
Its also pretty sad that the engineers at NASA never thought of it...
Actually the "NASA" types were doing that sort of thing many decades ago, pre maned space flight. If you gave this guy hundreds of millions for a budget he would have probably built a fancy rocket too.
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I've read a handful of comments around the web by people who say things like "How come nasa has to spend all of that money, why didnt they think of this"
Its amazing how people dont realize that Nasa has been doing this for decades... You know back before GPS existed... which would have never have existed if it werent for Nasa and the DOD. :P People are bizarre.
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They've never done it for under $1000 though, which this guy did.
NASA's balloon would have been expensive mylar, a convoluted parachute deployment system, and vacuum insulation (which is utterly unnecessary) for the insulation of the $10,000 camera they would have used. The GPS and Camera timing software would have been custom, adding thousands more to the cost. I can't imagine NASA doing a balloon based imaging mission that cost them less than $50,000 in parts and another $200,000-$300,000 in engineering
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Yes, and the people working on it also wouldn’t have done it for free in their spare time.
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You have to add labor costs to that, though. The guy probably invested many hours of work into this without getting paid. If some NASA employee did the same thing, he/she would receive a paycheck that would amount to much more than $1000.
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Did you miss the point? They did it BEFORE GPS and Digital Cameras! :) Decades ago.
Yes now you can do this thanks to the GPS satellites that NASA put in orbit and the Cameras Canon sells for cheap.
When someone builds a space station that stays in orbit out of a Pringles can and duct tape.. I'll be impressed.
Until then.. NASA gets my support, not my criticism :)
The Mars Rovers were incredible!
We have a Japanese asturant taking pictures every day from the Space Station, and twittering them :)
This guy certainl
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When someone builds a space station that stays in orbit out of a Pringles can and duct tape.. I'll be impressed.
That would either be one hell of a pringles can, or you'd be recruited some mighty small people to populate the space station.
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Minus the GPS and digital camera, of course.
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Actually the "NASA" types were doing that sort of thing many decades ago, pre maned space flight
Indeed, but things really got kicked into high gear once we sent the lions up.
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I'll see your coup and raise you a Turra [wikipedia.org] Coo [thescottishfarmer.co.uk]
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Which is the one where you get an automatic confirmed critical and the target has to make a DC Fortitude check based on the damage dealt?
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"South American coup de tat "
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1595490&cid=31615768 [slashdot.org]
It's like 3 posts above yours.
See how polite we are ?
Gosh, an Anonymous Bastard !!! (/change semantic database)
Hey Asshole, can't you even read ? 8p
Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cool (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget/ [wired.com]
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They'll work at high altitudes IF the phone has good LOS to towers near the horizon. Cell phones in aircraft are finicky due to the fact that most aircraft bodies make a good Faraday cage.
HOWEVER, there are a lot of HAB projects that say, "we're 100% legal because of this FAA reg that says we are", but use a cell phone. In the USA, those HAB projects are NOT legal, because even if the cell phone works, because of the fact that the system was designed and optimized around ground-based terminals, airborne u
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"When the balloon landed, they just followed the coordinates the phone sent them.
[...]
I question the cell phone story [...]: it only works when you are fairly close to the ground."
I'm ready to bet that once the balloon landed it was fairly close to the ground.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
Its also pretty sad that the engineers at NASA never thought of it...
They not only thought of it, they did it, although without the duct tape. However, they did use duct tape to keep the Apollo 13 astronauts alive on their way back from the moon (see "Moon Lost" in your favorite library).
A lot of early NASA weather baloons were seen as UFOs. NASA called the guy because they thought he launched a rocket.
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That's because engineers hate leaving things up to chance. Also, when projects are funded by the gov't, they usually have more requirements than just 'take some cool pictures'. And when they did it, they didn't have nice cheap off-the-shelf digital cameras.
In other words, if they didn't have a bunch of engineers working for a beaurocracy and there was cheap COTS hardware to use, they very well might have done it just as cheaply.
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NASA engineers expect to receive paychecks. They're funny that way. Hobbyists working in their spare time don't get paid.
Assume an engineering makes $50k/year (rather low actually). That comes out to $25/hour ignoring benefits. Spending a mere 16 hours (two days, not much) planning, getting approval, building, executing, and reporting the results the project's direct labor comes to $400. Add benefits, overhead for office space, tools, transportation, and you're looking at something like $1,000 + parts.
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Wrong. He's in europe. NASA has no "jurisdiction" there and would not have called him to check on whether or not he'd used a rocket. Calling about a rocket would have been the job of the EASA or the ESA.
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He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars
How do you read that and not interpret it as NASA simply inquiring about their methods?
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That's exactly my point. I was correcting the sentiment of mcgrew
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I'm really not seeing anything in mcgrew's post that implies that NASA was anything but curious.
Even if this was done in America, and laws were broken, I don't think NASA would be the one to get all huffy at you, that probably is an FAA, FBI, or ATF thing. NASA just does science.
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I don't think mcgrew was saying NASA was getting "huffy" about, but I think rwven thinks that is what mcgrew is saying.
In other words, y'all are saying exactly the same fucking thing, you're just sure the "other guy" is in opposition to you and your semi-ambiguous language is causing you confusion.
Removing the ambiguity, I believe the conversation is actually going like this:
Mcgrew: Either a: NASA thought the guy launched an expensive rocket to get the photos, and were curious how he managed it.
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You misinterpreted my post; I must not have been clear.
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Even in the USA, NASA doesn't have "jurisdiction". NASA designs, builds, and launches rockets.
The FAA is the organization that tells people whether or not it is OK to launch airborne device X in the United States.
The FCC is the organization that tells them whether or not the mechanisms they are using for communications are permitted in the United States.
There are international organizations that coordinate efforts between the FAA and their counterparts, and the FCC and their counterparts.
FAA -> ICAO
FCC
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I think you mean "Lost Moon". Or you could just watch the Film [wikipedia.org].
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Yes, you are correct. And Apollo 13 was a kickass movie, too, and accurate. I was 18 in 1970 and remember the news reports well.
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From the tone of the article, it sounds like they were impressed and/or curious. Any other articles you want me to read for you?
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It would be awesome if everyone [slashdot.org] hadn't done this many times [slashdot.org] already [slashdot.org].
If someone from NASA really called this guy then it's obvious no one at NASA reads
Please stop posting these stories, they were cool the first 3 times, now it's belongs to the Redundancy Office of Redundant Redundancy [facebook.com]
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It might be interesting to find out just who at NASA called this guy. If it was the guy in charge of outer space imaging, then it means one thing. If it was someone from NASA's public relations department it means something completely different.
People have been using balloons to do high-altitude photography for generations.
This whole thing sounds like one of those human interest stories that come at the very end of a newscast. "Finally, a young man in the UK, w
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Why the fancy software ? (Score:5, Funny)
The little brother is watching... (Score:3, Interesting)
The little brother is taking pictures. And videos...
He posts them to the Internet for the rest of the little brothers and sisters to see.
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What book? Sounds like an interesting read...
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Cory Doctorow: Little Brother
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Cory_Doctorow_novel) [wikipedia.org]
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ [craphound.com]
Details of the hardware ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Details of the hardware ... (Score:4, Informative)
(Each of the titles below has a link, so go check the document itself).
Hardware
Icarus Payload Hardware Setup Guide
This is a guide on how to set up the hardware in the Icarus payload. Currently the payload contains a Canon A560 camera and a custom designed PCB which does the tracking and communication. This PCB will probably be available from me should you wish to have a one at cost.
Timble Lassen IQ
This is an excellent GPS with a reasonable price tag. It uses the AND clause before shutdown making it perfect for high altitude work, provided your payload is not moving like a missile :-) The AND / OR clause refers to the manufacturers having to restrict GPS's from being used for missile guidance. Some manufacturers use a rule that is based on altitude OR speed and HAB often exceeds the altitude limit and the GPS shuts down. We favor GPS's that use the altitude AND speed restriction as the payload never excees the speed limits and hence the GPS keeps functioning.
Radiometrix
Established in 1985 Radiometrix specialise in the design and manufacture of low power radio products for rapid implementation of high-reliability, cable-free data links. Radiometrix is the industry's leading developer of off the-shelf, licence-exempt miniature radio modules.
ATMega8
The ATMega8 is an excellent microchip for this kind of work. There are plenty of good tools for programing this chip using Linux, Windows or the Mac see the software pages for links. An excellent website for information about programming the avr micros, as they are commonly called is AVR Freaks .
DS1821
This is a superb low temperature sensor from Dallas Semiconductor (now subsidiary of Maxim-ic). The temperature range is from -55 deg C to 150 deg C making it a good choice for HAB.
Trimble Lassen SK II
This is an alternative to the Lassen iQ and was my first GPS. If you want to work at 5v rather than 3.3v then this might be the GPS for you. Once again this uses the the Alt & Velocity rule before shtting down. This is basically to prevent people using these modules in missile guidence systems.
Gumstix Verdex
Gumstix develops and sells small, inexpensive, highly functional Linux computers for outstanding development and production systems.
Pololu Servo Controller
Futaba S3003 Servo Standard
Canon Digital Ixus 400
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Thanks for that - I never knew about the altitude & speed restrictions on GPSs. I can imagine that would cause some head scratching if you bought the wrong one for one of these projects.
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Yup. Also, some GPS units had even more stringent altitude/speed restrictions, not because of "prevent use in a missile" laws, but because of "make the user buy the more expensive unit" product line tiering. (A lot of older non-aviation Garmins had VERY low altitude/speed restrictions and would shut down in non-missile aircraft. Most newer ones do not.)
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Slashdotted! (Score:2)
BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are pictures, and even nice videos that come out every few months from folks playing around with high altitude balloons. It seems kind of unlikely to me that NASA would have just suddenly discovered this and been amazed. Until there is confirmation from NASA, I'm just going to assume this is BS, either made up by the guy, or some prankster called him.
Re:BS? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. There have been at least 3 nearly identical experiments posted on Slashdot in the last two years. All of them used weather balloons that got to around 100,000 feet. It's neat, but it's nothing new. There's no way NASA thought this was amazing. If someone from NASA called, it was a janitor or something, not an engineer.
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He set a record for the highest HAB (High Altitude Bioprospecting) flight at 22 miles, and he did it for about $700. That's pretty freaking amazing.
His balloons go so high NASA thought he was using rockets.
NASA's balloons go much higher, but they also cost several orders of magnitude more to do. Generally NASA only sends 2 or 3 balloons up a year. This guy is doing something similar on weekends in his spare time for a few hundred dollars. It's not unimpressive.
Sadly (Score:4, Funny)
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It will require more than duct tape and £500 to resurrect his server after a slashdotting.
Why? What sort of computer sustains physical damage from high utilization? Unless he overclocked it foolishly I expect that it will resume functioning at no cost whatsoever once the incoming requests drop to a low enough rate.
Photos here (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdotted, pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30721501@N05/collections/72157621244472915/ [flickr.com]
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BTW, interesting how the exterior temp rose near the apex of the flight - I'm not sure I understand why. But then, this is almost rocket science.
Punko
Re:Photos here (Score:4, Informative)
We're in the troposphere, where as you go higher, temperature goes down (because the effect of the ground heating gets less as the ground gets further away).
Above the troposphere (which is anywhere from 30k-70k feet high) is the region knokwn as the tropopause, where the temperature is constant (but cold - -53C I believe). Above the tropopause is the stratosphere, where temperature actually increases due to the ozone layer absorbing UV light. I think a good weather balloon can easily reach the stratosphere and see the rise in temperature.
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My guess is that sensor was reading heat from direct solar radiation. While surrounded with air, it would lean more towards air temp, which goes down as you go up. Once there is no more air, you're getting very hot when facing the sun or very cold when facing away.
Flat Earth Society (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Flat Earth Society (Score:5, Funny)
Already been done for years. (Score:4, Informative)
They have some AWESOME video of their attempts.
I wonder why NASA is just now finding about about this stuff???
Not Space (Score:3, Informative)
a balloon-mounted camera that can travel up to 21.7 miles (35km) above the surface of the Earth
According to most people, space starts at 100km [wikipedia.org]. It's impossible for a balloon to get that high, because there is no atmosphere at that height - and balloons require atmosphere. Even the blog specifically states:
...pictures of the Earth from near space...
So, there it is. Not space. Only near space. Summary is wrong.
Re:Not Space (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but "Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Really High, Almost Space Photos" doesnt have the same ring.
College kids did it for a heck of a lot less money (Score:5, Informative)
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500 British pounds, not US dollars. Around $750 according to the current exchange rate.
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Exchange rates between pounds and dollars are a bit tricky. Sure, 500 pounds will get you $750 at the bank, but, especially when dealing with high-tech stuff, 500 pounds will buy you about the same amount as 500 dollars.
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All of our supplies (including camera, GPS tracking, weather balloon, and helium) were purchased for less than a grand total of $150.
So the tracking part was included, and if you read just a little farther it says it landed 20 miles away. I don't know home much gas costs around MIT, But I'm gonna assumed they didn't stray past $200.
P.S. I should have posted that link as well earlier, its linked on the Wired.com page.
MiccyGee! (Score:2)
Given NASA's new budget cuts... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Altimeter (Score:2)
Also how hard would it be to make one of these to carry a person? If Virgin Galactic [virgingalactic.com] is going to charge $200,000 to carry someone to the edge of space, wouldn't it be cooler to ride a balloon to space and then parachute back to earth?
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Joseph Kittinger would agree.
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Yes. It would definitely be cooler to ride the balloon up and parachute down. Much cooler.
Actually, I wonder what it would cost to ride a hot air balloon to high altitude and parachute back? Like 50,000 ft or so? I am thinking of a pilot and passenger, so the balloon is flown down and re-used. Hmm, how would the free-fall times compare? Where's me slide rule?
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Also how hard would it be to make one of these to carry a person? If Virgin Galactic is going to charge $200,000 to carry someone to the edge of space, wouldn't it be cooler to ride a balloon to space and then parachute back to earth?
*****
A more rational though less fancy method would be to use the balloon to carry the entire ship up and launch it from there. The fuel savings and faster acceleration might actually enable them to obtain a reasonable orbit for a few minutes or hours.
Prior Art (Score:2, Informative)
I was more impressed when that bunch of Catalan Highschool Students did the same thing [telegraph.co.uk]. They also had some fairly impressive photos [flickr.com] as well.
Why is this better than NASAs balloon program? (Score:4, Informative)
I mean... whats the big deal here that NASA would care?
It has its own high altitide balloon program - where they do real science - for weeks at a time - not just cool pictures for a few hours...
http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/balloon/ [nasa.gov]
http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
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I mean... whats the big deal here that NASA would care?
Cost. Not every part of NASA is well funded.
Thankfully ballon boy's dad did not know this (Score:2)
This seems to get attention every few months (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot has
http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/10/24/1813205/Huge-Balloon-Lofts-New-Telescope [slashdot.org]
reported on this
http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/12/21/1328206/BLAST-Telescope-About-To-Launch-From-Antarctica [slashdot.org]
several times
http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/09/19/2312240/Space-On-a-Shoestring [slashdot.org]
over the past
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/05/05/16/1845220/DIY-High-Altitude-Ballooning [slashdot.org]
few years.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/03/18/1645216/DIY-Space-Photography [slashdot.org]
And each time
http://www.sbszoo.com/bear/sable/sable3.htm [sbszoo.com]
people are surprised. Maybe I read Slashdot too much. Yeah, that's the problem...
Hate to kill the buzz here and all... (Score:2)
But why was NASA spend any money on this at all? They already have lots of really nice pictures from orbit pretty much any time they want them. The project, while fun, doesn't do anything new, doesn't do it any more accurately or in any greater detail. It doesn't have implications for new future launch platforms or any other new kind of science. If the balloon had be smaller and had climbed less high, he'd have been little more than a peeping tom using a camera on a kite or balloon to see into neighbo
My kids started doing a low tech version at age 5 (Score:2, Interesting)
FA is a troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All the NASA scientists couldn't think of that? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:All the NASA scientists couldn't think of that? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, thats a myth.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp [snopes.com]
The "space pen" was developed independently from NASA and NASA did in fact use pencils on several early missions.
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Why are you surprised? NASA spent millions to develop a pen that could write in space... the Russians used a pencil. Sometimes people look for a really complicated solution instead of going for something cheap and cheerful that gets-the-job-done.
LOL!
I mean, no. No they didn't. This is an urban legend perpetuated by petty anti-government types. Educate thy self: http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp [snopes.com]
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Funny how being against bad governance gets translated into being against all government by the left.
NASA Bought 400 pens for $2.95ea (Score:2)
BZZT! And that's the incredibly wrong answer that we were looking for!
Thanks for playing the "regurgitate-urban-legend-bullshit" game - you've won the ridicule of your online peers.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp [snopes.com]
Anonymous Coward? Tell him what else he's won!
Re:All the NASA scientists couldn't think of that? (Score:5, Funny)
Shows how much thinking "out of the box" goes on in top engineering circles today...
Why are you surprised? NASA spent millions to develop a pen that could write in space... the Russians used a pencil. Sometimes people look for a really complicated solution instead of going for something cheap and cheerful that gets-the-job-done.
To be fair, though, NASA saved billions by faking the moon landing.
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