TV From the Moon - Apollo's Live TV cameras

[@twisterwiper]

It’s amazing to think about all the components that went into the Apollo program. Every little sub-system was an engineering feat in itself.

[@dave_dennis]

I recall getting up VERY early in the morning to watch the Apollo 12 broadcast from the moon with my dad. What a disappointment when the camera was damaged very early in the excursion from the LEM. Still its a good memory of my dad waking me up so that he and I could enjoy this together just the two of us.

[@BillHalliwell]

G'day Paul, We didn't have any colour TV transmission, here in Australia, in 1969; it didn't come till the mid 70s. However, I vividly remember seeing the 'live' transmission from the moon on a small but high quality B&W TV that we had at the time. We all thought the images from the moon were amazing; in no way were we expecting a high-res image. Looking back, of course, we can see it's shortcomings but, at the time, we thought it was almost as miraculous as the moon landing itself. We were well aware of the contribution Australia made via its Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes installations and, I've read, that were it not for the Australian part of the network, the world would have missed out on the first part of Neil Armstrong's historic stepping onto the lunar surface. It's almost unbelievable that there were those at NASA who actually thought these pictures were not important. One has to wonder what other amazing achievements might have been held back from the public given that literal 'short-sightedness'. Thank you so much for the story of how we got to see those pictures in the first place. Young people might well be unimpressed by these images from the 60s now, but I can assure them that the entire world was utterly in thrall of the US astronauts. It was a troubling time for humans back on Earth at the time and, happily, the lunar missions seemed to have a positive effect of drawing humanity together, especially when we all saw the pictures of Earth from the perspective of the moon. For a short time it compelled most people to think about a world without borders and international squabbles. It was a great time to be alive. Cheers, BH

[@ann_onn]

There's a good movie about Parkes' contribution, called "The Dish". 2000.

[@RWBHere]

I was fortunate enough to be in Sydney when that transmission was broadcast live. I was in a school with about 3,000 pupils, and the opportunity was extended for all who were interested to watch the broadcast. Only about 40 children were interested, and we watched it on a TV set which was perched on a stack of benches so that we could all see it. I don't remember a classroom full of children with a few teachers being so quiet for so long. For me it was an unforgettable experience, because I had been interested in space travel for years, having seen the Sputnik third stage flying overhead when I was very young. (Nobody saw the active satellite. It was too small. But the Soviets had craftily left the launcher stage unpainted for maximum visibility.) My father was always interested in technology from an engineering viewpoint, so he instilled that interest in his children. The development of the Space Race kept a young mind enthralled, even without needing paternal encouragement, so I tried to miss none of it. Kennedy's famous Rice University announcement became part of my life, and I was dejected when he was assassinated so soon afterwards. The fact that NASA fulfilled his promise re-instated my faith in what could be achieved, despite adversity, and that eventually shaped my career. I'm by no means pro-American or pro-Russian but I have a lot of respect for the bravery, hard work, and sheer determination of all of those who designed, built, launched and flew in those spacecraft. That respect extends to our modern times. Space exploration never will be safe, and even those who fly in the ISS/MKC risk their lives every day to further our knowledge of space and our Solar System. Let us always remember that fact, and continue to have similar appreciation of what the few are doing for the many, despite detractors and difficult challenges. Only the determination and support of those with the means and courage to push the frontiers of science will enable us to travel to Mars and beyond. So again, respect for those who have gone before, and for those who develop that legacy.

[@MattyEngland]

It was a psychological operation by the CIA, to see just how much power the 'miracle' of television had over the western world. Had it been real, the USA would have been back countless times by now, and the Russians, Chinese, EU and every other super power would have also been there at least once. The excuse of not having the budget is laughable. The US wastes countless hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and China even by Conservative estimates has tens of trillions in cash and gold reserves.

[@BillHalliwell]

​@@MattyEngland G'day Matty, I didn't need to go past, 'Read more'; because you're absolutely right. But, did you also know that the real reason no nation has been back to the moon is because of the Alien/CIA Space Port and Shopping Mall on the Dark Side Of The Moon... all the best to you and your therapist, Cheers, Bill

[@MattyEngland]

@@BillHalliwell I suspect the real reason is that you're terrified of confronting the fact that we've all been lied too, but your reply did make me laugh. I'll pass on the good wishes to my therapist, as long as you tell Rolf and Skippy that I said g'day 👍👍

[@bebopwing1]

I started working in TV in the early 2000s before DTV in the US and we were still shooting on DVCPro tape, and the idea of NASA recycling tapes absolutely sounds believable. I also laughed at the "conversation process" of filming the slow scan monitor with a broadcast camera, because that's exactly the kind of hodgepodge thrown together solution we would have used in TV news. Folks these days just don't know how easy they have it!

[@comment2009]

Started in TV Production / news in 1982. 1" and 3/4" tape. Fond memories of setting up remote multi-camera shoots w/ analog gear.

[@marksmadhousemetaphysicalm2938]

Tell me about it...I worked for our local public TV station in the 80s...you want to talk about ancient equipment...😁🤣 still, it was interesting, I got to do everything...from cameras, to switching, to editing to directing...🤔😁 even help at the tower...being a HAM taught me lots too...slow scan TV is popular between HAM shacks...and just general radio principles. Today it's so darned easy...btw...anyone ever work with an Amiga Video Toaster? We had one of those at the station in the 90s...weird name, good for special effects (in its day) 😁🤣

[@stuartgray5877]

And the "deniers" don't realize that the "Tapes" were converted to NTSC/PAL IMMEDIATELY after reception. The ORIGINAL tapes are USELESS to anyone EXCEPT NASA because the transmission was in a proprietary format to FIT in the allocated bandwidth.

[@getlost1847]

kzbin.infoXR8NFiFe8Vw?feature=share

[@getlost1847]

kzbin.infoXR8NFiFe8Vw?feature=share

[@mpersad]

Fascinating video of a little appreciated, yet vital part, of the Lunar landings. Top work!

[@getlost1847]

kzbin.infoXR8NFiFe8Vw?feature=share

[@heydude7568]

top work? hahaha😂😂😂 i dont think so hahaha, how deeply you are deceived, you do genuinely believe what you're saying too which makes this even more sad

[@ArKritz84]

@@heydude7568 why do you believe what you are saying? Without resorting to personal incredulity, please.

[@heydude7568]

@@ArKritz84 i cant see my previous reply to you so maybe it been deleted, i will always answer a genuine question, grab a beer and a good set of headphones and meet me at kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6qlc32Qjrh4rq8

[@heydude7568]

@@ArKritz84 and then lets talk again

[@cwaldrip]

The video of the Apollo 15 command module lifting off was shot remotely and controlled from Houston. I heard an interview with the NASA engineer - because of the delay he was shooting blind. They knew the had the module in frame before departure, but he basically guessed on when and how fast to zoom out and pan up based on the delay and countdown. It was all done manually, without seeing it live-live… just delayed by a few seconds. Amazing.

[@MrT------5743]

You are a little bit wrong. Apollo 15 liftoff from the moon was a still camera video. There was no zooming out or panning up. Apollo 16 they did attempt to zoom out and pitch up but the LM assent stage still left the camera picture going up faster than they panned up. Apollo 17, they got it it right.

[@mikecowen6507]

Ed Fendell was the engineer.

[@MrT------5743]

@@mikecowen6507 for which one? Apollo 15, 16 or 17?

[@mikecowen6507]

@@MrT------5743 ALL of them. You can consider the first 2 as practice for the near perfect Apollo 17.

[@brianarbenz7206]

Ed Fendell was the gutsiest technician. He practiced for a year and a half for three two-second opportunities which to him meant success or failure of his legacy. As said, 17 was the best. Still, he also planned to catch the Apollo 17 Ascent Stage being crashed onto the moon the next day a few miles away. He had it all meticulously figured, but never caught a view of the crash. It has bugged him ever since. He close to 90 now.

[@Tavignano]

The télévisions broadcasts from the lunar surface of the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions were magnificent thanks to the cameras mounted on the lunar rovers.

[@MonochromeWench]

"Not scientifically important" but extremely politically important. It was during the cold war so being able to one up the soviets with video of the event seems like a no brainer.

[@DonVigaDeFierro]

Let's not forget that politics ultimately gave the project the funding they wouldn't get otherwise.

[@arthurcurrey7109]

Yeah it was important enough to lie about

[@Erik_Swiger]

Camera Engineer: "Don't point the camera at the Sun!" Astronaut: rides a flaming candle into space, travels 230,000 miles, lands on another world POINTS CAMERA AT SUN

[@DiRF]

Al Bean didn't have very good luck with cameras. Prior to re-entry and splashdown, he forgot to secure a camera mounted in the capsule, and it broke off its mounting upon impact and clocked him in the head, giving him a concussion.

[@arty2k]

Nobody is that stupid. It was damaged on purpose.

[@ArKritz84]

@@arty2k why on earth would they do that?

[@Jan_Strzelecki]

@@arty2k There's no pleasing you guys, is there? Normally, you argue that _Apollo_ missions had to be fake because they supposedly went flawlessly, but when you are told they _weren't,_ you use _that_ as evidence of fakery anyway 🙄

[@arty2k]

@@ArKritz84 so you agree then that the astronaut who trained for years and rehearsed the mission a hundred times was stupid enough to damage an essential piece of equipment accident?

[@boredgrass]

FINALLY, after 52 years, someone explained to me how the first step on the moon could be filmed! The colour tv technology part was captivating! As impressive as current technological advances are, I find even more fascinating what people then were able to achieve by clever use of what they had! I would love to learn even more about the camera and tv tech! It was a great pleasure to watch!

[@MrT------5743]

You do know google has been around for a really long time? I am also pretty sure you could have gone to a library 45 maybe many years ago and looked up the schematics of the LM and saw it had an external camera. It is YOUR fault it took 52 years to get an answer.

[@boredgrass]

@@MrT------5743 I work in a library, so, no chance! 🧐

[@MrT------5743]

@@boredgrass So not knowing for 52 years was just pure laziness then?

[@boredgrass]

@@MrT------5743 Some people live so far away from humour and irony; Even self mockery doesn't reach their ironclad castles. Castles only built to educate the rest of humanity about all their wrong ways to the last syllable of recorded time! Isn't the righteous shadow who struts and frets his comment upon the stage, a poor player? Will he (more often than not a "He") ever be heard?

[@MrT------5743]

@@boredgrass I do not see how your original post was humorous or any form of irony. There is so many uninformed people out there and they live in their ignorance like a baby in a crib thinking it is everyone else's job to cradle them their whole lives. Occasionally they have a question about how something works, but does nothing to try and find the answer. Then after 52 years, someone spoon feeds them the answer they claim they were wondering about all that time. 1. Either you really didn't care about your question. or 2. You are insincere about FINALY knowing the answer after 52 years.

[@hullinstruments]

Absolutely love and adore when you cover electronics and engineering related projects such as this. It’s always nice to see someone like yourself cover subject matter that I work with every day. Your proximity fuse video is probably my all-time favorite video from 2021.

[@demonorb8634]

Taking a camera to the moon was a hassel blad. Fantastic video as always sir!

[@jeffreyskoritowski4114]

Go home. You've eaten to much "Space Icecream". Lol

[@InvestmentJoy]

My dad always complained about the moon landing, specifically how was it recorded if there were no camera men? If only he had known it was due to nasas employment of literal wizards!

[@Agarwaen]

you have low standards if you think placing a camera on the side of something requires wizards

[@InvestmentJoy]

@@Agarwaen tell me you didn't get the joke without telling me you didnt get the joke..

[@DeputyNordburg]

@@InvestmentJoy Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, every parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied. Also "Literal wizards"?

[@DeputyNordburg]

@@aemrt5745 The purpose of the conspiracy theory is to draw attention to the author, not the topic or the explanations given. Big Foot came to exist because "I got drunk and lost in the woods" was not as a good a bar story as "I was in a fight for my life with a 7 foot tall man ape". Does the story teller believe the moon landings are fake, the Earth is Flat, politicians are witeral lizards? Does it matter?

[@mondotv4216]

@@DeputyNordburg I don’t think anyone with any critical thinking ability really believes the earth is flat. Some people use it to make money, some are genuinely paranoid, some use it to try and justify their religion or politics (which are perhaps the weirdest reasons of all) and some, unfortunately just lack the ability to think critically. However there are a bunch of people out there who really do believe the moon landings were faked. Once again that’s all built around paranoia and conspiracy but it’s hard to “prove” something that happened 50 years ago, when the major sources are at the heart of the paranoia.

[@seanf6724]

Paul: The Man, The Myth, The Legend, The Shirt! Great work as always mate.

[@icegiant1000]

I love how in many of the shots of the vintage control room, there are those giant amber ashtrays... Can you imagine these guys trying to control and keep in touch with a spacecraft, and they are lighting up camels while doing it? Insane.

[@777jones]

Without nicotine they would have been distracted by nonsense just like today’s young people.

[@captiannemo1587]

Can I imagine? Yes, yes I can.

[@thomasfx3190]

+1 on having a smoke while launching a 3 million horsepower rocket, without pulling out your hair.

[@Dude-Smellmyhelmet]

The only thing I have trouble imagining is the equipment being in a smoking room. Easy to imagine people smoking if it's allowed.

[@nicholas5623]

@@Dude-Smellmyhelmet My thought to, all that sensitive equipment around smokes, ashes and the sticky nicotine on everything. That's insane to me

[@prudencepineapple9448]

I'm glad Honeysuckle creek got a mention. Many people don't realize the important role Australia played during the Apollo missions.

[@applemachome]

They have a website I was able to get a dvd that had footage from an 8mm camera of the screen displaying the raw slow scan footage

[@Captaincinquo]

What about Parkes??

[@mikecowen6507]

@@Captaincinquo Parkes only played a small part during the initial video of Apollo 11. Once Goldstone came into view of the moon, they had a better signal and became the primary feed. So, yes, while Parkes did carry the first video from the moon, it was only for a few minutes.

[@Captaincinquo]

@@mikecowen6507 Hi Mike. I've been trying to send replies with links, but it seems I cannot. Oh well, you'll have to google it yourself. You're right that there was a changeover, but you've got the locations wrong. Goldstone wasn't part of anything due to technical issues. Honeysuckle Creek carried the first few minutes, and Parkes then carried the majority.

[@mikecowen6507]

@@Captaincinquo My extended replies are not working either. I'll try later...

[@mrakmrakmrakmrak]

Great video! The projected live tv feed from the control room visible at 14:37 also deserves a mention. I have once wondered how the heck did they projected a live video on a large canvas back then, so I search and what I found was incredible! A car-sized device with spinning disk covered with oil where the image being burned by evaporating the oil with high power electron gun oil and a fridge recondensing the oil vapors. .... or somehting along those lines, but it is a truly fascinating device!

[@jannek5757]

Ahh, just in time to watch instantly :) Good stuff!

[@igorsmihailovs52]

Just like the landing itself was watched :-)

[@CabviewHolland]

Thanks for all the effort you put into these short docs. Not only always interesting but also very relaxing during the breaks in my shifts :-)

[@SparkBerry]

If the moon landing skeptics have done anything, they've made us believers dive deeper into the details of the actual mission and leave with a even greater sense of awe at the accomplishment! Thank you skeptics!

[@bobthebomb1596]

I may be wrong, but I always believed that was the intent of the original flat earthers, to encourage people to look into the background science.

[@jasondashney]

If the flat Earthers would do even a tiny dive, they would see videos like this one. Every single company would've had to have every single engineer and employee on board with the conspiracy. Some of these companies were mega corporations, and there were thousands of components. Not to mention the fact that Russia would've squealed immediately if they even remotely suspected it was fake. You don't even have to analyze any science to understand that obviously we went to the moon..

[@bobthebomb1596]

@@jasondashney I don't want to make this a flat earth discussion. As I said I think the early "proponents" saw it more as a thought exercise.

[@ghost307]

@@jasondashney The best debunking that I ever heard was a guy at NASA who said that coming up with a conspiracy to fake the moon landings would have been harder than going to the moon.

[@Caleb-fe2dl]

@@jasondashney someone accidentally recorded over the old tapes. NASA also forgot how to build Saturn V rockets. too many coincidences. There were russian whistle blowers who got disappeared. Obviously the russians would have been in on it. Also, I am not a flat out moon landing denier... I just like asking questions.

[@PeterDavid7KQ201]

Loving this rapid fire release schedule!!

[@getlost1847]

kzbin.infoXR8NFiFe8Vw?feature=share

[@googlgfacef218]

The earth is flat - 1.4bn Chyna people

[@midnightrambler8866]

I remember the lead up to Apollo 11. My dad went out and bought a color TV. Only to find out the signal from the moon was in black and white.

[@morskojvolk]

LOL. We went to my grandparents house to watch it for the same reason.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZmwp36saayLa7c :D

[@weeliano]

Absolutely amazing documentary! People fail to give credit to the amount of technology that goes into the making of these early electronic/mechanical video cameras! Your video did justice to the history of early video camera technology!

[@mrs6968]

Hello I've been watching for well over a year now and I love your uploads and shirts I was just wondering where does your love for loud shirts come from and do you live in them or just put them on for videos? P.s your Apollo videos are always my favorite I'm still hoping one day you make a Nascar video. Thankyou for every second you spend making this content for the whole globe to enjoy

[@MrEazyE357]

Nascar?

[@mrs6968]

@@MrEazyE357 yes he's done motorsports videos in the past like top fuel dragsters so why not nascar

[@mrs6968]

@@MrEazyE357 fun fact Chrysler had a missile department engineer the fastest nascar ever during it's time the Plymouth superbird there's a crossover video idea right there. It was so fast from it's aero package that they banned it

[@brantisonfire]

That’s incredible. I think VHS was 3mHz and it looked great for the time it was developed. To get video at half a mHz is amazing.

[@SuperBiologe]

It is incredible, considering it being pre transistor aswell. (Btw you mean MHz, mHz would be milihertz)

[@brantisonfire]

@@SuperBiologe I’m not an electronics whiz, so thank you for the correction. I’ve been formatting it like that for a while.

[@ghz24]

@@SuperBiologe This wasn't pre-transistor, we had advanced transistors, we had mosfets in fact. The transistor radio became a consumer product in 1954. Integrated circuits on the other hand were developed concurrently with Apollo and the IC industry got a gigantic boost from the deep pockets of Apollo. Paving the way to the computer age years earlier than if only private consumers purchased its products. Intel was started in 1968.

[@SuperBiologe]

@@ghz24 good to know. Then I will specify: impressive that they built such a compact camera using no transistors, but vacuum tubes

[@ghz24]

@@SuperBiologe It didn't have vacuum tubes. 7 watts will barely run the heater on a vacuum tube let alone the whole camera.

[@anthonynorton666]

Thank you. I never get tired of Curious Droid topics.

[@Marinealver]

Apollo 12 camera looked at the sun. Sun: So you have chosen death TV Stations: Well no one is going to care about Apollo 13 then.

[@hallamhal]

And sadly, no one did, until things went wrong

[@brianarbenz7206]

To quibble with the Droid -- well not quibble, really -- Alan Bean did not point the camera at the sun. He unintentionally pointed the camera at a spot on the bright rippled Lunar Module gold foil that was reflecting the sun. He was carrying the camera at the time and with a two-second delay in communications from Houston, there was no way to tell him until the system was burnt out.

[@brettpalfrey4665]

Maybe a simple lens cap would have saved the camera , or was the weight that critical?

[@your_utube]

Done very professionally and contains new things of much interest. Thanks indeed.

[@SaturnCanuck]

That was amazing. I was five and I remember seeing this live!

[@davok73]

Always a happy day when Curious Droid has a new upload .. keep up the good work!

[@dougiegooner]

What sort of people actually complained about Apollo 13 live film being shown on tv, because it meant they didn't get to finish watching repeats of "I love Lucy!?" That's unbelievable.. And very sad!

[@captiannemo1587]

In fairness “I Love Lucy” is always good shit.

[@mikecowen6507]

@Dougie S LIVE film? Guhead and explain that.

[@Tim67620]

It's amazing to think that because of the war we were denied the first colour TVs. John Logie Baird was on the verge of producing a colour system in Britain in the '30s using the same tech that produced a colour camera for the Moon landings. We had to wait 25 years to finally get it and longer still till it was reasonably available. I never really understood how his spinning wheel worked so thanks Droid for explaining that.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

FWIW: I always thought the _live_ remotely-controlled color video broadcasts from the Apollo 15 - 17 rovers were the _best_ at catching the activities of the astronauts on the moon.

[@josephstevens9888]

Excellent video Paul..... one of your very best! I can remember being a very impressionable six-year old watching the ghostly images of Armstrong and Aldrin along with my brothers, sisters, and cousins from the living room of my Aunt and Uncle's house. Looking back now, it is really amazing that I watched live an event that will be remembered by humanity not just hundreds of years from now, but tens of thousands of years from now. I find it amazing that the tapes that contained the raw footage of the first Lunar EVA was not immediately sent to the National Archives. However, that being said, I have served in both the military and the auto industry, and I can see how something like this could have occurred.

[@Ganiscol]

Imagine they had not broadcasted the most daring endeavor in human history, when the first humans set foot on a celestial body other than Earth. 🤪

[@brantisonfire]

The lizard people running the world have been transiting from here to other “celestial bodies” for eons. We’re stuck on a stage, setup for a production that lies to us in order to provide entertainment for our cold-blooded overlords. Open your eyes and mind, bro.

[@jr2904]

@@brantisonfire Lol

[@TheHqextreme]

@@brantisonfire LOL

[@musicbruv]

@@brantisonfire Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

[@paulhaynes8045]

It's 'broadcast'. And, yes, I know CD said it as well - and he's English and should really know better!

[@dominicwalker1899]

Great content Paul - thanks so much for making such a well researched and paced video. Addicted to watching your content!

[@aurorajunior6328]

curiosmark uploded a video where he conected a simaler camra to an actual apollo transmiter/recever

[@simon8864]

Another brilliant documentary this time about something I had not thought twice about. Keep up the great work!

[@dadecoza]

CuriousMarc is reverse engineering the Apollo radio transmitters that transmitted the broadcast and Curious Droid is giving us background on the actual video/camera equipment used ... thanks for the awesome Apollo content *curious* ones!

[@mikewilliams6467]

For the interested here is the playlist of CuriousMarcs Apollo S-Band Communications work kzbin.info/aero/PL-_93BVApb58SXL-BCv4rVHL-8GuC2WGb

[@alansmithee183]

Paul, your videos are fantastic! Hope you land a hosting gig one of these days with one of the networks.

[@439sparky1]

Paul, if you feel the need to make longer videos then please don't hold back. You say we want a lot of info in a short period of time, however, I would definitely watch a 3 hour documentary with you as the presenter any day of the week. The way you talk is just iconic, and of course, love the shirts!

[@bingosunnoon9341]

I worked at a TV station during the first moon landing. We set up a 16mm film camera to record the TV monitor of the images beamed from the moon to Woomera. Videotape was unknown at the time. Vidicon cameras didn't have memory anyway. Film at eleven.

[@sphinxtheeminx]

Everyone knows Neil Armstrong actually said 'That's one small step for man, one Swiss dinosaur in Polly Gosling's anorak hood'. According to Kevin Eldon. And he's never wrong.

[@terrypussypower]

Kevin Eldon rules!

[@cool78666]

Step for”a” man

[@MrT------5743]

@@cool78666 Neil himself believes he did not say the "a" when he heard the recording. He did intend to say it.

[@aemrt5745]

I heard in the Ohio twang the 'a' is sometimes lost in speech.

[@MrT------5743]

@@aemrt5745 I would think the best person to analyze speech would be the person speaking. And Neil himself said did not say the 'a'.

[@pastelskies8466]

Your videos are very educational. Like lessons within lessons per your video titles. Bravo! Do you have a background in television electronics? Who made/ground the camera optics?

[@Ten28film]

Keep up the great work!!!

[@alexlandherr]

Nicolas Cage finding the lost Apollo 11 tapes would be an interesting National Treasure sequel.

[@ClannCholmain]

The look of a man who has been to the moon after very little sleep and pumping with adrenaline.

[@Sonnell]

It would have been nice to mention the great YT channel, CuriousMarc. They restore original Apollo hardware, and present them in operation, including the camera systems.

[@eddielung31]

Fortunately for the upcoming return to moon mission, all the new generation astronauts need are good protective cases and perhaps embedded wifi from their landing craft, and then they can simply use their own iphones or Android phones to shoot TV footage.

[@debott4538]

I'm actually incredibly curious how they'll do it once Artemis gets going. While cameras shoud not be an issue today, reception on or around the moon obviously hasn't improved in the slightest since 50 years ago. Meanwhile live transmissions even from the ISS or LEO have been really bad so far.

[@stavinaircaeruleum2275]

Surely any such phones or tablets would have to be radiation hardened?

[@robbytheremin2443]

I was one of those 600 million. Just shy of my 12th birthday. What a time to be alive!

[@HumourDownUnder]

I'm just thankful I was alive at the time of the Apollo Moon landings! It was an amazing thing to witness, no doubt about it!

[@shaneb6004]

It certainly was a great event to witness , we seemed to have slighter clearer tv images in Australia of the Apollo 11 moon landing and surface activities .I guess that was due to having a more direct relay out of our tracking stations to the tv stations across the country .

[@youerny]

Wonderful video: those about "vintage" electronics and space exploration are the best. And two posts in rapid sequence are very welcome! Thank you for the double effort!!

[@youerny]

As expected, this episode is a true jewel full of tech details -a digital option for video in the '60s?, 8KVolts tubes; any topic you choose to study about Apollo always reveals a stockpile of tech problems totally unexpected and solved ingeniously. This is by itself a proof against "everything conspiracy"- Just one more thing: before the invention of paper in the middle ages, Christian Monks used to copy by hand text on parchment. Since it was very expensive, quite often they had to gently scratch away ink from an old book to rewrite something else. And it was not unusual to erase something important to make space for something without any value. Many documents of historical value have been lost forever. And again...

[@Agarwaen]

@@youerny also (and in the same time period as apollo) BBC erased original tapes of early Dr Who (and who knows how much other historicly relevant information has been lost from such reuse). hell, can you imagine how much data gets lost to save space each day nowadays ( in addition to simple degradation of recording media, and in some cases the loss of workable hardware to even use it)

[@aemrt5745]

...and the first Superbowl was taped over too.

[@jpkalishek4586]

We were vacationing at my Uncle's cottage and I watched the landing wearing my pajamas with Mom, Dad, and my sister. I was 4.

[@Crashed131963]

Crazy to think a 48 year old person was not born when the last moon landing happened. More people on the Earth today never were alive than were alive on the last moon landing.

[@parttime9070]

@@Crashed131963 You have posted this twice, what is your point.?

[@321CatboxWA]

thank you for not playing the one small step audio clip! cool topic thanks and well done!

[@pleasureincontempt3645]

Such a wonderful deep dive. Prior to now, I had only considered the issues between NTSC and SECAM to be the only reason why most Amercians couldn’t really appreciate UK television shows. That said, both have serious merit and egos should be left aside. I like to think we’ve all grown-up a little; Completely terrified that tribalism continues to be a nuisance to humanity itself.

[@bobroberts2371]

Lots of Brit shows were on USA TV.

[@andersjjensen]

@@bobroberts2371 Because the recording standards were the same. But they needed to be broadcast in NTSC for US TVs to show them right.

[@mspysu79]

The UK used PAL for analog broadcasting, France used SECAM.

[@rob5944]

Ironic, when you consider that a in-built instinct was once an essential one.

[@mspysu79]

@@bobroberts2371 Not really in the early days, the most common show was Monty Python's Flying Circus, which aired on PBS. It was converted from PAL to NTSC using analog standards converters (mainly using analog delay lines and matrix encoders) before being recorded on an NTSC videotape and then being sent to the US. It was not until 1972 that the BBC developed the first digital standards converter and it took until the 90's that digital converters became common. hence the explosion of britoms onto American tv first from Lionheart Television then later BBC America.

[@paulogden7417]

There is no temperature in space as we know it. Our understanding of temperature is based on natural convection which is totally absent in the vacuum of space. There is only radiation cooling and heating. Designing for these factors is very different than designing for convection. It would not have been possible to design a camera to the power and weight constraints of Apollo if space really had the “temperatures” you stated.

[@DeputyNordburg]

I am not really sure what you mean here. Things in space certainly have temperatures. When discussing the moon surface temperatures are often quoted. Some people think this is like an air temperature on Earth, but it's not, it's just the temperature of the Soil. The thing about designing space equipment is simulating the space environment is really easy. A vacuum chamber and some spot lights. Anything sent on Apollo was tested this way again and again before being sent. There is only radiation cooling and heating. And reflecting heat away before absorbing it. And if you are discussing the space craft or space suits, add evaporation and sublimation.

[@antoninbesse795]

Paul your videos are so interesting and well researched - there’s something “solid and well-made” about them! Thank you, and keep’ em coming for your 1m+ subscribers.

[@dukenukem8381]

We never went to the Earth.

[@AssistantCoreAQI]

This Is A Canon Duke Quote.

[@Shrek_Has_Covid19]

air is fake

[@mbazzy123]

Always enjoy your fine work Paul, thanks for the great videos and the opportunity to learn !

[@davefellhoelter1343]

Remember "Our expectations" are low at this time. Most of U.S. watched Black and White TV with Snow! Happily in the Day. WE Absolutely thought these shots to be Perfectly GREAT! Considering it was "THE MOON"!!

[@fishie3799]

Hell, I was born in '94 and grew up with the rise of HD and UHD digital cameras, and I'm still impressed at how they were able to get these monochrome TV cameras up to the Moon in the 60s. I think it looks great, all things considered. Such cool technology!

[@nmccw3245]

The broadcast was better than the clapped out old portable B&W set my mom made me watch it on when I was four.

[@frankgulla2335]

Paul, a great tour of the world of 1960s video technology without getting bogged down in the technology. Thank you.

[@morskojvolk]

Keep up the fantastic work, Paul! Anything that brings out this many Moon hoaxers _has_ to be good.

[@gpstenholm23]

Another entertaining and informative video. Thanks Paul, and congratulations on hitting 1 million subs mate o/

[@nguyendailam6703]

Whenever I hear cameras on the moon I think of Al Bean !

[@ISpillSprite]

With these videos getting into the small details of the Apollo program, I'd love to see an episode on the food of Apollo from you.

[@Jan_Strzelecki]

Seconded.

[@oreally8605]

And there are still psychopaths who think man didn't reach the moon..

[@jaminova_1969]

The 525 lines was for the PAL system. In the US, we used 480 lines / 30fps @ 60 HZ for NTSC. I'm still fascinated by this, as I was a baby when NASA landed on the Moon! I have a very clear memory of my Grandfather, a Television Repairman at night, and Machinist by day, bringing home a 19" Solid State B/W Panasonic set he bought just for the occasion!

[@tinyredgiant9915]

NTSC is 525 lines at 29.97 FPS. PAL is 625 lines at 25 FPS.

[@BGraves]

I'm sure the politicians wanted to make sure that we showed the world with transparency what a free nation can do which was a slap in the face to the USSR who was doing all of their space stuff in private. In other words, it was our video of people walking on the moon in stark contrast to the beeping of Sputnik.

[@echodelta9]

Was that an earthquake in Russia?

[@Milosz_Ostrow]

The Apollo 11 camera, mounted in the equipment bay door of the LEM, which flipped down like a drawbridge, was active before Neil Armstrong crawled out and climbed down the ladder on the landing leg. As I recall, though I could be wrong since it has been 52 years, the first few minutes of the live broadcast showed a sideways image because of the way the camera was mounted. The image became upright and more comprehensible a few minutes later when Armstrong removed the camera from the equipment bay and mounted it on the tripod. This isn't evident in the videos shown today, because the converted images rotated the first portion of the transmission and that's all that the last couple of generations have ever known.

[@marklatimer7333]

All that money and all those clever people and nobody thought "Lens Cap?".

[@ronbennett7885]

I'm sure the engineers did. Generally, if something wasn't in the specs, it wasn't provided. Maybe there was a cap and it wasn't used. If so, then a lack of training. My hunch is there wasn't a cap, since that could be difficult to manipulate with gloves in space. Fortunately, there were later landings that captured much video without mishap.

[@mikecowen6507]

It had a flip open lens cap. The whole thing was a simple brain fart by a guy *standing* on the surface of the moon with just a few other thoughts in his head.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

Laughs in $2 billion B-2 that doesn't even have a $20 matress for 18+ hr flights

[@kentslocum]

This video was such a rollercoaster of emotions! First I was intrigued to learn that the moon landing was filmed in a slow-scan format that was higher quality than what was widely broadcast. Then I was jubilant that the original transmission was recorded to tape. I couldn't wait to see that version. Then I was devastated to learn the tapes were erased and overwritten. I am in mourning.

[@yassassin6425]

What precisely were you expecting from "that version" that differs from anything else? Footage of a "higher quality than what was broadcast"?

[@kentslocum]

@@yassassin6425 Wouldn't you?

[@yassassin6425]

@@kentslocum I wouldn't make that statement no, because I actually understand what was erased.

[@kentslocum]

@@yassassin6425 There's almost asways a loss in quality whenever a video is converted from one format to another, unless the new format is truly lossless, with higher resolution and higher framerate. So even though I understand what was lost, I still would have liked to have seen the recordings of the original video signal, before it was re-recorded for television and broadcast. While the quality wouldn't have been much better, it would certainly have been an improvement, especially given modern methods of archival video recording and preservation.

[@yassassin6425]

@@kentslocum There appears to be huge confusion over this, no doubt perpetuated by online conspiracy theorists and grifters. The 'original' recordings that you are referring to are simply back up tapes comprising raw analogue video transmitted via unified S Band during the Apollo 11 mission which was at some point erased. The tapes were made using specially designed, high-capacity recording equipment in order to capture the raw transmissions at source in case anything should go wrong with the process used to convert them to a standard broadcast signal which would have needed to be done anyway. Once the conversion and transmission was complete, the recordings were no longer needed for their original purpose. Any magnetic recording media has a limited life. The magnetic fields of the stored data decay over time. For this reason, and because high-grade tapes were very expensive, they were never considered an archival medium. The data on those tapes, including video data were relayed to the Manned Spacecraft Center during the mission. The video was recorded there and in other locations; there is no missing video footage from the Apollo 11 moonwalk. There was no video that came down slow scan that was not relayed live, to Houston and fed live to the world. During the search for the magnetic tapes, the team came across broadcast-converted tapes that were far superior in quality to anything previously seen. There were tapes recorded in Sydney, Australia, during the Apollo 11 mission. They also found kinescopes at the National Archives that had not been viewed in 36 years that were made in Houston. Sifting through the CBS archives they further uncovered tapes that had been fed directly from Houston to CBS - the raw data as recorded and archived.

[@gleneldridge5666]

Get your here in a hour ticket here 👌👌👌

[@user-yv2sc5qv7x]

Excellent descriptions and comparisons of all systems used...or not used!

[@westondoesit6127]

Fantastic job on documenting all this!!

[@LavaLahaie]

im really enjoying your enriching videos and love those wild shirts and that wicked slick dome of yours :) keep up the great work. im from montreal over here in the french part of canada. congratulations on achieving the million mark in subs eh...

[@didyasaysomethin2me]

Never heard of a Secondary Electron Conduction Camera Tube before. But as you were talking about the transition from black and white to color something popped into my mind from a documentary about the advent of television technology, specifically the part about a large color wheel. That documentary came around when all mobile phones were still analog, so forgive me if my memory of the specifics is a little hazy. But anyway, what did you mention just a few minutes after that recollection crossed my mind? The color wheel, of course. Between that documentary and this video combined I can now see a bit of a bigger picture, figuratively speaking that is.

[@youtubevanced4900]

It's amazing that someone made the decision to just tape over the first moon landing footage. I remember cleaning out this old cupboard once whilst I was in the army. It hadn't been opened in 20 years. It was filled with old roll books and photos and various other bits of history of the battalion from the late 60s to the early 80's. I was supposed to destroy everything in the cupboard. Soon as I saw what it all was I thought, at the very least I need to ask someone if this stuff should be kept and displayed at least in part in the battalion museum. That was just pretty mundane roll books and pics. I just can't imagine making the decision to just delete that historic footage.

[@Jan_Strzelecki]

It was a question of necessity. The original tapes were environmentally unfriendly because the binder (the glue that holds the magnetic material to the plastic substrate) was made from a whaling product. After the whaling ban the manufacturers of those tapes were forced to find a greener process. They did, but it didn't work as well, which means that NASA had no way to replenish their tape stock. And they needed new tapes, because, after _Apollo_ was over, the telemetry machines were immediately retasked to other space missions. They work for unmanned missions too. In fact, for unmanned missions the telemetry recorder is considered a Criticality 1 item. Without that recorder, you have no mission. So, when the tape manufacturer couldn’t fix the process in time, NASA was forced to reuse the good tapes from previous missions. Since the choice was between archived data of dubious value (since more useful copies existed), and new data from new missions, it's pretty much a no-brainer.

[@youtubevanced4900]

@@Jan_Strzelecki I'm not sure I'd call taping over the only copy of the highest quality footage of the first moon walk and landing a no brainer. Sure they had to make a decision to support the new mission but man what a loss for human history.

[@Jan_Strzelecki]

@@youtubevanced4900 _I'm not sure I'd call taping over the only copy of the highest quality footage of the first moon walk and landing a no brainer._ The hidden premise here is the notion that people at the time considered these tapes original copies, of great historic value. That is not true. That is a modern reinterpretation of the situation put forward by people who don't care to study the story. The thing about the original telemetry tapes was that they were very large, very expensive, and could only be played on very large, very expensive telemetry recorders. The _Apollo_ 11 television signal -- which was not a standard video signal, but rather a special compressed format that was used only for a few space missions -- was part of this complex set of signals. Those signals are what the tape records. In the form received by the ground stations and recorded on the tape, it was useless. It could not be played on a regular television or sent to the television networks. It had to first be converted to a standard signal. This was done using a custom-built equipment the size of two refrigerators. It extracted the television portion of the signal, converted it to standard formats, and then recorded that extracted and converted signal on standard (at the time) broadcast videotape. That converted signal was considered the original recording, and _that_ survives. The telemetry tape, containing the special compressed format, was treated solely as the backup, which turned out to be unnecessary. The converter worked fine, the broadcast went out live, and the standard-format NTSC first-generation recordings were carefully preserved. From the engineers' perspective, the NTSC conversion made live during the missions was the most faithful that could be made, and the most faithful that could ever be made. Any subsequent attempts to extract the video from the telemetry would produce a video signal no better than the one they had in hand. Now, decades later, we have better methods of handling those analog signals and extracting more information from them. And an organization has painstakingly restored and preserved in working order one of the old telemetry recorders. But that was unanticipated in 1969. They had what they needed, so the telemetry tapes were placed dutifully in storage. It's not as if they just threw them in the dumpster when the spacecraft landed.

[@mickeyfilmer5551]

i was 10yrs old, on that July morning- I don't know why, but I awoke very early - about 4.30am ish- went downstairs, and my mum was watching the descent and subsequent landing- we had a roumd 9 inch tv in a square box-I can't remember all of it, but I do remeber the One small step. I am 62 now and hope to see man go back to the moon and also Mars before I pop my clogs!

[@RomainWhatever]

This is very very interesting thank you for all your work !!

[@paulstein6971]

Thanks, Paul for the video. One thing I would like to point out as a slight error. Going from shadow to direct sunlight in space would be a quick change not instant. At one au we get about 1000 watts per square meter. So rapidly cooking things yes. But going from sunlight into shadow would not cool as fast as the heating cycle. As to only having one if the three possible ways to lose heat, radiation.

[@terrypussypower]

I watched all 6 of the moon landings live on TV! The first one was *very* exciting because I was only 10 yrs old, and it was the first! But the next 5 for me, were even *more* exciting as I was getting older and could more fully understand what was actually happening. But that Apollo 11 landing is seared into my brain as it was on all day, and during 1969, to have ANY single subject on TV all day, was an event in itself as there was only 3 channel’s available in the UK at that time!

[@GRPLiningServices]

You didn’t watch anything live. It was all done in a studio. Like that camera could track the thing blasting off the moon and track it perfectly. Really? 1969 remember.

[@terrypussypower]

@@GRPLiningServices Good grief! There’s one always moron….and today you’re it! Moon landing deniers are right down there with flat Earthers, Creationists, evolution deniers and anti-vaxxers on the list of scientific illiterates.

[@terrypussypower]

@@GRPLiningServices And btw, that “camera tracking thing” only happened on the final two missions, IN 1972!….NOT in 1969! I mean, if you don’t even know basic stuff like that, then you’ve obviously done no research worth talking about. Just pathetic.

[@jkholtgreve]

It’s a joy to watch the archived broadcasts on KZbin, even if they’ve largely gone through a few generations of analog tape and aren’t in quite the state they were on first broadcast. The tension is still just as palpable, especially with 11 and 13. Highly recommend any NASA fan take a few Saturdays and go through them, then watch a documentary or two on Orion to get angry about what could’ve followed on.

[@MrMegaMetroid]

@@GRPLiningServices the russian luna 15 probe was tracking the progress of Apollo 11 the entire time, and even delayed their sample return mission to confirm the Moonlanding.

[@AwesomeShotStudios]

Thank you for this. As a video producer myself, the technology side fascinates me as much as the historical side. And FWIW, my first camera was a tube camera (Plumbicon tube). I was also under orders to avoid pointing it at bright point-source lights (and never at the sun).

[@ionostro]

great show! thanks, Greetings from Chile SouthAmerica.

[@BertLensch]

Crazy to think that less than 30 years later entire camera assemblies were 75 mm x 75 mm x 50 mm in size, including the fisheye lens, for 720p resolution. Now they are packaged on a single chip with 4K resolution.

[@Crashed131963]

Crazy to think a 48 year old person was not born when the last moon landing happened. More people on the Earth today never were alive than were alive on the last moon landing.

[@EVRose60]

Awesome presentation as usual!

[@19TheChaosWarrior79]

I love your content and have asked Previously where this particular shirt comes from as it's amazing.

[@PoliticalCineaste]

The Westinghouse Color Camera flew in all Command Modules from Apollo 10 onwards. In fact NASA was still using the Westinghouse color camera in the early 1980s for the Space Shuttle. So even on Apollo 11, the color TV transmissions from the Command Module were the Westinghouse camera. The biggest improvement that the RCA lunar camera brought besides being able to be aimed at the sun, was gamma control. It was a big improvement over the Westinghouse color camera.

[@Flightcoach]

Great and interesting video! I just dont get what you say at 4:50 you seem to define the transmission bandwith in mhz, i thought that was a measure for speed/frequency? Did you mean 4-5mbit?

[@Jan_Strzelecki]

At the beginning of the information era, the transmission bandwith was indeed defined in mhz, before we invented modern terminology.

[@DeputyNordburg]

4-5mbit is digital. This was analog.

[@infinitecanadian]

One of the greatest moments in human history, captured on film and broadcast as it happened.

[@Beaula2]

Ide love to see a similar video detailing the cameras/camera shielding setups used to take that erie slow motion footage of muscular bombs hitting targets like tests houses and cars! Great content! Been enjoying for years! Cheers!

[@dansv1]

Those nuclear bombs were pretty muscular.

[@stephenirwin2761]

Great summary Paul! Nicely done.

[@Rafaga777]

As always fascinating content and great narration. Thanks a lot for posting.

[@sonnyburnett8725]

As a space race kid, I was blown away by tv on Apollo, but have to admit I always wanted to meet Al Bean so I could rib him about ruining the Apollo 12 Moon walk. Love those guys!

[@513895]

great content. fun to watch. your one of the best. 👍

[@iPig]

I'd love to see a little series of videos about the film cameras of the Apollo and shuttle programs.

[@FancyPantsFiles]

Thank god for sponsor block! Great video

[@wizzardofpaws2420]

Another brilliant video. I watched that live broadcast the first time they step foot on the Moon. It was my 14th birthday and it was a spectacular birthday!

[@shadowraith1]

Remember it well. Same year I graduated H.S. Thanks for sharing. :)

[@Robslondon]

Brilliant video. Keep up the great work.

[@salaseivastajat]

Thanks this is exacly what I have been waiting for