This is a late Apollo anniversary post. I could not find the picture for several days. That’s appropriate because the camera was lost for a decade too.
This is an Apollo camera. It’s not one that went to the moon they’re all still there; excess baggage. This one was used by the astronauts in training. It looks a little different from some Apollo cameras because it has the pressure housing on it.
After Apollo 17 there was a world tour of Apollo artefacts to a dozen countries. It ended in Australia. That was not the intention but when it got to Australia the relatively young NASA staff member escorting all these priceless items died. It was a huge shock to everyone. There was no medical warning. Australia made all the arraignments to get him back to the USA with all honours.
Then the problem arose. This was one of the genius missile men with a perfect memory and a slide rule. He did not take notes. He never needed to. No one knew where he had stored the artefacts. The big stuff was easy, it was all in plain sight but the little items like the camera was in a store room. Because he had the run of several universities, they did not know which storeroom on what campus in which Australian city the remaining items were.
University campus’s are a maze of rooms, annexes, annexes on the annexes, cupboards, sheds and basements. The floor plan charts are generally wrong. Whole rooms have been lost; the doors blocked by “temporary” equipment. Universities tend to grow, mutate, metastasize. Departments move. Professors have been know to need directions to their own office.
The box of Apollo treasure was lost thoroughly in the 1970’s. Then in 2005-6 someone found a box behind another box in an Australian National University store room. It was the missing camera and a few other items. The man who made the camera came out from the USA to check its was genuine and its the real thing. He was quite elderly but very proud. He gave a lecture on its design, operation etc. Making a camera that survives launch, vacuum, landing on the moon is hard. Temperature changes from sub zero in shadow to 200+ in full Luna light is hard. Man handling by astronauts was a big problem. Making controls on it that could be worked by astronauts with bulky gloves was one of the greatest challenges.
It was officially given back to the Americans a few minutes before I was allowed to hold it. Note the gloves. A kilogram of gold would have been cheaper and less fragile. The meeting and the photo shoot was a National Space Society event. Or at least that’s why I got the invite.
I’ve since out lived my National Space Society life membership three times. Sadly the second time was 9/11 all the records and both staff went down with the tower. They keep forgetting me. Lol.
One item in the box remained unidentified at the time of the photo. A key for opening something on either a Saturn 5 or the LEM, or the reentry capsule. No one knew.
2 replies on “We found it, lost Apollo camera.”
What a fascinating story and picture. Thanks for sharing it.
Sadly I’ve forgotten the day / city / year but on Antiques Roadshow some months back they had an interview with someone who’d brought in a part of a camera and some pictures of the man (I think it was a lady, so her father) that had made it. It wasn’t the camera itself but either some sort of flash or handle perhaps that had, I think, gone to space and came back but NASA wanted it re-designed. He made the new one but they never asked for the old one back so he kept it, and then passed it down.