Kodak’s “Pre-Invented” Lunar Orbiter Camera; or, The Fate of SAMOS Readout
In 1966 and 1967, NASA sent five robotic spacecraft into orbit around the Moon. Constructed for the primary purpose of finding landing sites for Apollo, the Lunar Orbiters also enabled nearly comprehensive mapping of the Moon in stunning detail. The quantity and resolution of the photographs returned by Lunar Orbiter was unprecedented, thanks to a camera system built by the Eastman Kodak company of Rochester, New York. Their imaging system involved elaborate mechanisms to expose photographic film in orbit, develop the film onboard the spacecraft, and remotely transmit images back to Earth. In February of 1967, the Rochester Times-Union published…
Keep readingThe Echoes of Apollo
Last week, people flew around the Moon. It feels surreal to be able to type those words. When I talk to people who witnessed the Apollo program, I like to ask them what they remember. Most were children at the time, and their answer is often some version of: “Oh, I wanted to be an astronaut.” Some of the children who witnessed Apollo did become astronauts, while others became engineers and scientists. But the power of Apollo transcended generations, the stories and images from the missions creating new witnesses decades after Apollo 17. There is Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch,…
Keep readingExploring the Far Side of the Moon: A Visual History
Lunar exploration has always held a strange position in the history of exploration. For all of human history, people have been staring up at the Moon, and for centuries astronomers used telescopes to study the lunar surface. The telescopic surveying and mapping of the Moon by astronomers can (and should, I think) be considered a form of exploration. From this perspective, the Moon had been thoroughly explored far before the dawn of the Space Age. But on the other hand, because of the nature of the Moon’s orbit, the Moon also possessed some of the most mysterious and inaccessible terrain…
Keep reading“Standing By”: Science Communication on Apollo 8
This morning, as I sipped my coffee, I took in the view of a crescent Earth from the perspective of astronauts heading toward the Moon. It’s the first time this has been possible in over 50 years. Yesterday, as I awaited the launch of Artemis II, I watched the CBS broadcast of Apollo 8, in which Walter Cronkite guided America through the very first journey around the Moon in 1968. Throughout the broadcast, Cronkite regularly broke away from the action to talk to leading scientists. Viewers were taken to Jodrell Bank observatory in England, where the eminent astronomer Bernard Lovell…
Keep readingHistory Highlights 5: Air Age Maps, Nukes in the Sky, and the Tao Te Ching
In Highlights, I share a collection of interesting history things I’ve come across recently. In this edition: an interesting map, an atmospheric nuclear detonation, and Ursula le Guin’s version of the Tao Te Ching. I was recently gifted The Library of Lost Maps by James Cheshire. One of the maps he uses to introduce the book is this 1945 “Air Age Map of the World.” By the end of WWII, air travel was becoming more accessible, and the people who made maps like this were looking forward to widespread air travel in peace time. The map is centered on London,…
Keep readingExploration Review 6: Return to the Moon
In Exploration Review, I collect news from the last couple weeks about the exploration of remote places. In this edition: return to the Moon, asteroid science, and tiny underwater robots. Special Note for the few of you who currently subscribe both to my Substack and my history blog at invertingvision.com: This year, I’m going to be experimenting with a content publishing model called POSSE (Publish on Site, Syndicate Everywhere). That means you probably got two copies of this post in your inbox. Feel free to keep your subscription on your preferred platform, and unsubscribe elsewhere. You will still get all…
Keep readingSpectacle on Other Worlds
The first spacecraft from Earth to touch another world carried no people, but it did carry a unique sort of flag. Early on the morning of September 14, 1959, the Soviet space probe Luna 2 impacted the surface of the Moon. Engineers had placed stainless steel spheres aboard the spacecraft, designed to send tiny pentagonal banners across the lunar landscape. The little flags were emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, and Russian script reading: “CCCP, September, 1959.”1 The spheres were made at OKB-1, the Experimental Design Bureau where engineers worked under the leadership of Sergei Korolev to create some of…
Keep readingUpdates
It’s been a while since my last post, so I wanted to get back to the blog with an update on what I’ve been working on, and what’s next in 2025. This summer I was lucky enough to start working with JSTOR Daily as a regular contributor. JSTOR is a large digital repository of academic journals, and a valuable research tool. I was fortunate to have high school teachers who taught us how to use JSTOR and similar resources, and I used them extensively in college. It was always exciting for me. These journals contain an ongoing conversation between the…
Keep readingThe First Time NASA Photographed a Lunar Lander
The Odysseus lunar lander built by Intuitive Machines (IM) recently became the first U.S. robot on the Moon’s surface since the Surveyor landers in the 1960s. Earlier this week, IM worked with NASA to get pictures of the lander from orbit. The resulting image is impressive, showing the lander as a tiny speck in the vast grey landscape near the Moon’s south pole. The image is also an echo of the first time NASA managed this feat, 57 years ago. In 1967, NASA’s third Lunar Orbiter spacecraft snagged a photograph of Surveyor I. The story of how engineers acquired that…
Keep readingHistory Highlights 4: Darwin’s Wild Ride, Losing Lenses, Finding Lunar Landers
My schedule has become highly variable due to grad school and freelance work. I’m currently working on a series of posts about scientific photography on the British Antarctic Expedition–so far you can read a short introduction, and a post about Herbert Ponting’s early photographs of animals and ice. I’m still working on the next post in that series, which will focus more on the scientists of the Terra Nova expedition and their work, as seen through Ponting’s lens. Until then, here’s a new History Highlights–a periodic collection of new work and other interesting things in the history of science, exploration,…
Keep readingPhotography and Science in Antarctica – Orcas and Ice
This is part two of a series of posts about photography and science on the Terra Nova expedition of 1910-193. You can read the introduction here. This week we find Ponting arriving in Antarctica, and beginning to get acquainted with the environment. Scientific curiosity drew photographer Herbert Ponting to Antarctica. Before his journey with the British Antarctic Expedition in 1910, the great southern continent was already a place of growing scientific interest. Early encounters in the late 18th and early 19th centuries had revealed ice shelves, animals, and mountains that encouraged dedicated missions to chart and understand the continent. James…
Keep readingPhotography and Science in Antarctica – Introduction – Herbert Ponting
This is a short introduction to a planned series of posts about photography and science on the British Antarctic Expedition. It includes another story about photographing orcas and ice. In 1910, the British Antarctic Expedition set out on the Terra Nova with the goal of being the first people to reach the geographic south pole. Captain Robert Falcon Scott organized and led the expedition–the second Antarctic voyage in his career. The Terra Nova expedition is now famous for being beaten to the pole by Roald Amundsen, and for the tragic deaths of Scott and the polar team on their return…
Keep readingHistory Highlights 3: Mapping the Ocean and the Moon, Living Museums, Ancient Arctic Voyages
Welcome to Inverting Vision, a blog about the history of exploration, science, and technology. From this point forward, I will be publishing posts every Thursday unless fate intervenes. History Highlights will appear occasionally as I work on more substantial posts. Next week I’m hoping to write about the scientific instruments that appear in Herbert Ponting’s photographs of the British Antarctic Expedition. Until next week, here are some highlights from my readings and the wider exploration and science community. Do we know more about space than the deep sea? Probably not these days, according to marine scientists Alan Jamieson, Premu Arasu,…
Keep readingStudying Eels and the Ocean on Beer Money: The Dana Expeditions
In the rivers of Great Britain and western Europe lives an eel that was once at the center of a great scientific mystery. The European eel was frequently caught in nets or farmed in fisheries for centuries. Cookbooks featured them in a wide variety of dishes. But the origins of the eel were a mystery since no one had observed an example of a young eel. There are records speculating about their spawning and migration patterns going all the way back to Aristotle, who claimed that they came from earthworms (Aristotle, History of Animals 6.16). The mystery wasn’t solved until…
Keep readingHistory Highlights 2: FLIP, Challenger, Demons, and Kepler
FLIP, Laboratory at Sea Stefan Helmreich writes about FLIP (FLoating Instrument Platform), a fascinating vessel designed for oceanographic research. First launched in 1962, it has the unique ability to change orientation, immersing most of its structure into the ocean to become a buoy. This provides a relatively stable platform for research, and the ability to do semi-controlled experiments on waves. It is an example of how the distinction between the laboratory and the field is sometimes blurred, in part due to technology. You can read more of Helmreich’s analysis in Media+Environment and ISIS. Looking Back on InSight and Phoenix on…
Keep readingHistory Highlights 1
Math and Mining in the Ore Mountains Deep in the heart of Central Europe, near the border of Saxony and Bohemia, lie the Ore Mountains. Rich in minerals, the Ore Mountains played a central role in the development of European metallurgy. They are home to some of the first European mining operations, and the inhabitants have been mining tin and silver there since the Pre-Classical Era. For millennia, the region has attracted people looking to make a living. In the 16th century, as truly large-scale mining operations were underway, Georg Agricola arrived in the mining town of Chemnitz. He had…
Keep readingHistorical Preservation and the Wright Brothers
I visited Dayton, Ohio in the summers of 2016 and 2017. It felt like a pilgrimage of sorts, because in many ways Dayton is the Mecca of the aerospace history world. Recently, news emerged of the plan to demolish the Wright Brothers’ first bike shop. I figured it would be a good opportunity to write a little about Dayton, and in the process develop my thoughts on historical preservation in general. To approach the question of historical preservation in Dayton, we need to understand why Dayton is significant in the history of aviation. Kitty Hawk, seemingly more so than Dayton,…
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