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Apollo 17 Moon Negatives anyone?


Limbo

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I accidentally found this auction on ebay of this guy selling allegedly original negatives from the Apollo 17 mission. Panoramic shots, 6ft wide by 9 inches. I was gullible enough to buy three of them and I wonder if there's any way to authenticate those... not that I think they are fake, it just seemed to me that this kind of memorabilia would be worth more than the $75 he was asking for it...

The same guy also happen to be selling a McDonnell Douglas "Star Wars " Satellite (SDI), what helped me belive the negatives are real...

Heres the link for the aution

Auction for the Star Wars satellite

post-209-1172765481_thumb.jpg

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NASA took tons of photos of the moon on the apollo missions and from what i understand their book keeping afterwards wasn't so good. ie: things got lost, were un-documented, filed away and forgotten about.

I also remember hearing that NASA doesn't own originals of most of it's moon images anymore either. so it seems pretty likely this might be real.

Try out http://www.bautforum.com/ in their Questions and Answers section and you'll probably have a lot more luck than on MacrossWorld finding good answers.

if... if they're real do you think you could make a print for me??? ^_^

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A Star Wars satellite? WTF? A mock-up, I assume? Still, that'd be a crazy conversation piece.

No mockup. The dude claims it to be the real deal... not sure if comes with the death ray though...

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A Star Wars satellite? WTF? A mock-up, I assume? Still, that'd be a crazy conversation piece.

"Hey Bill, what's that huge thing in your garage?"

"Oh, that's just a multi-million dollar satellite from Reagan's SDI project."

*squirts beer out of nose*

:lol::lol::lol:

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you know, i'd kind of assumed it was a mosaic. is the "negative" itself really one big 6 foot continuous thing?

I got the thing in the mail. EACH POSE is 6ft wide! The guy sent me uncut sequencial frames, so I have a huge 18ft x 9" strip of negative film, making 3 6ft panoramic frames the moon. Apparently it was shot on Kodak 2420 film, used on aerial surveillance.

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Why do I find it strange that something as "important" to national defense as a Regan era SDI satellite is legal for a private party to own let alone sell in an open forum? Wouldn't that be like me prying a guidance computer out of a cruise missile or pulling the avionics package out of a F117 and trying to sell those on eBay?

I know for a fact that the .gov strictly cracks down on current and former "government property" sales. I mean, you can't legally sell a carton of gov issue MRE's anywhere, but you CAN sell "Fake" civilian market ones. If uncle sam is touchy about people selling meals in bags I wonder how he feels about some yahoo selling one of their prized projects from the '80s out of his backyard? And even more confusing is if that satellite IS real, just how did this guy come into possession of it? You didn't just walk into McDonnell Douglas or even a museum and waltz out with a chunk of military hardware. :ph34r:

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NASA took tons of photos of the moon on the apollo missions and from what i understand their book keeping afterwards wasn't so good. ie: things got lost, were un-documented, filed away and forgotten about.

I also remember hearing that NASA doesn't own originals of most of it's moon images anymore either. so it seems pretty likely this might be real.

Try out http://www.bautforum.com/ in their Questions and Answers section and you'll probably have a lot more luck than on MacrossWorld finding good answers.

if... if they're real do you think you could make a print for me??? ^_^

Yeah there was a story in the past 12 months about how a bunch of pictures, movie footage, etc. from the Apollo program is missing.

As for the "SDI Satellite", I'm really not really sure what to say. It looks like it's authentic aerospace related gear and the the gold foil would seem to be indicative that this was part of a satellite, but I don't think its an entire satellite; looks pretty small for something that might be for early warning detection, weapon guidance, or as a weapons platform. It would be interesting to find out the true origin and design of that piece of equipment.

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From what I gather, yes, NASA does have a bad habit of misplacing items, due to: 1) Massive inventory. 2) Shoddy record keeping. 3) Employee dishonesty.

So if the negative is authentic, I imagine that it was obtained through rather dubious means. If that's the case, if the government deemed fit, they could probably come after you for it. Won't arrest you or anything, but they would likely demand it back.

Of course all this is from hearsay, so take it was you will.

Now, if it's SDI related, then I'd definately watch it. SDI isn't defunct in any way, and research is still active in that area.

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Something about the satellite smells...illegal. I've worked with McDonnell-Douglas hardware, and the plate looks genuine, albeit a bit clean for an item over twenty years old. I would definitely have to question where a private citizen could procure a piece of equipment like this, as I would suspect it still retains a classification of "Secret" or higher. To my knowledge, not even obsolete electronic and avionics equipment from retired aircraft are sold to private sector; the former Soviet Union, the Chinese, and various other countries with the will, the money, and the science could potentially obtain this item easily and determine its function.

Conversely, despite the redneck surroundings in the pics, it would be ironic if the CIA was behind this, trolling for spies and terrorists.

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Conversely, despite the redneck surroundings in the pics, it would be ironic if the CIA was behind this, trolling for spies and terrorists.

Funny you mention that... I was wondering why is a defence Satellite sitting wide open in front of a trailer park myself... :blink:

I'm just surprised with the price tag. It gotta be real. Anybody shelling out 250.000 would have the means to authenticate the item. I wonder if McDonnell-Douglas could authenticate and maybe explain how Bobba got the Star Wars Satellite... :ph34r:

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Hey, one guy in the US bought an F-18. Partially disassembled, but the real deal. Made the news, and I think the govt confiscated it, but it happened.

And there's of course big problems with F-14 parts getting out now.

AS long as the weapon systems aren't mounted, what would be the grounds? Bill Gates can probably afford to keep a few F-18's operational... why shouldn't he be allowed to own one?

Though I imagine if I was Billy Gates, I'd have something much better like the Bat Plane. :D

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One expensive ass frakin' camera from NASA.

Well, it's not exactly strange for a panorama camera.

9" isn't an odd frame width for professional applications. It captures enough detail that you can do a lot of serious studying of the image.

And let's be honest, if you're gonna be one of only a dozen people to walk the moon, you want the best damn pictures you can take. :)

But yeah, the camera was expensive. Pretty much everything we send into space is.

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Well, it's not exactly strange for a panorama camera.

9" isn't an odd frame width for professional applications. It captures enough detail that you can do a lot of serious studying of the image.

And let's be honest, if you're gonna be one of only a dozen people to walk the moon, you want the best damn pictures you can take. :)

But yeah, the camera was expensive. Pretty much everything we send into space is.

Here's a Nasa page with details about Panoramic Photography on the Moon

Panoramic Camera Rectified Photography on 229 x 1829 mm (9- x 80-In) Film Data Set

--

Panoramic Photography

NSSDC ID: 1972-096A-06

Mission Name: Apollo 17 Command and Service Module (CSM)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Frederick J. Doyle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description

The purpose of the panoramic camera photography experiment was to obtain high-resolution panoramic photographs with stereoscopic and monoscopic coverage of the lunar surface. These photographs will aid the principal investigators of other scientific instrument module (SIM) experiments in correlating their sensor data with data on the lunar surface. The camera, which has a 24-in. (610-mm) focal length, provided 1- to 2-m resolution from an orbital altitude of 110 km. The camera had four main components: (1) a roll frame assembly that rotated continuously in the cross-track scan direction, (2) a gimbal assembly that tilted fore and aft to provide stereo coverage and forward motion compensation (fmc), (3) the main frame, and (4) a gaseous nitrogen (GN2) pressure vessel assembly. The optics system, camera/film drive and control system, and film cassette completed the camera system. The camera system was mounted in the CSM SIM bay between the two SIM shelves. It was stored with the lens inward to protect it from contamination sources. The photography was automatic, but the crewmen could activate, deactivate, and control the camera power and operational modes. A crewman retrieved the cassette with the pan camera photography from the SIM bay on an EVA during transearth coast. About 1500 photographs of good quality were obtained.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discipline

Planetary Science: Geology and Geophysics

Personnel Information

Edited by Limbo
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