Photography at New Heights

During his space walk on the fourth day of the Apollo 9 mission, Astronaut Russell Schweickart shot photos of Astronaut David Scott, who was standing in an open hatch of the command module (Gumdrop). Scott, at the same time, was taking pictures of Schweickart standing on the platform of the docked lunar module (Spider). Inside Gumdrop, Astronaut James McDivitt was busy photographing Schweickart. "Now we're all taking pictures of everybody taking pictures," Schweickart commented. The photographic frenzy continued unabated for the remainder of the mission. Thus last week the world was treated to pictures as varied and excellent as any ever brought back from earth orbit.

Using 70-mm. Hasselblad still cameras, 16-mm. Maurer movie cameras and roll after roll of color and black-and-white film the Apollo astronauts literally photographed everything within sight: Gumdrop, Spider, the third-stage S-4B rocket, themselves, and the curved expanse of earth below. During the somewhat more relaxed final half of their mission, they also tried out a variety of filters and specialized film to shoot infrared, green-light and other pictures that should teach scientists more about the earth and its resources.

Astronaut's-Eye View. Early in the mission, the astronauts trained a movie camera on the discarded third-stage S-4B rocket while it orbited near by and recorded the sudden and startling spurt of flame as its engine was fired to shove it out of the way and into a permanent orbit around the sun. In a sequence showing Spider undocking from Gumdrop, Spider moved slowly away and then began a smooth and graceful demonstration of its maneuverability.

One of the most dramatic movie sequences was an astronaut's-eye view of reentry, looking up through a window while the spacecraft plunged through the atmosphere, blunt end down. An orange-yellow glow filled the window as the heat shield became incandescent. Fiery chunks torn from the shield hurtled past the window. Shroud lines could be seen whipping in the wind, and viewers could almost feel the jerk as the or-ange-and-white main chutes opened, abruptly slowing the descent. The scene ended with the sky and clouds gyrating sickeningly, and the colorful chutes appearing and disappearing in the window as the descending Gumdrop swung back and forth.

Home Movie. Astronauts gain their photographic know-how during eight hours of intensive briefings and practice assignments with the cameras and film they are to use on their mission. Each is issued training cameras for more practice during off hours and asked to turn in exposed film so that experts can criticize their techniques. The Apollo 8 crew became skilled enough to make a home movie--complete with hand-lettered titles and credits that were held up in front of the camera--on their way to and from the moon. After thorough editing, NASA released only selected portions of that film.

Just as they were becoming attached to their cameras, the Apollo 9 astronauts were forced to sacrifice some of them for expediency. Because no provision had been made for safe storage of all of the cameras aboard Gumdrop during its reentry, Astronauts McDivitt and Schweickart were ordered to leave a Hasselblad, a Maurer and their $453,000 TV camera behind in Spider, which is still in space. The cameras will last as long as Spider continues in orbit. But about 19 years from now, as the strange craft re-enters the atmosphere, the cameras, along with Spider, will be burned to a crisp.

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