Amateur Photographer – 20 July 2019

40 20 July 2019 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113

Inspiring generations to see beyond...

and go beyond

Discover the story behind the images. Source: NASA

UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE, ALL PICTURES © JOHN WADE

Testbench

S

trange as it might

now seem, during the

early days of space

exploration, photography

wasn’t considered important.

The fi rst man in space was

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin

who circled the Earth during a

108-minute fl ight on 12 April 1961.

A weird stop-motion series of

pictures of Gagarin during the

fl ight have survived, but sights

seen through the window of his

spacecraft were never recorded.

That same year Project Mercury,

America’s fi rst human spacefl ight

programme, administered by the

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA), took Alan

Shepard and Virgil Grissom on the

fi rst sub-orbital fl ights. Cameras

were on board only to document

instrument readings.

First cameras in space

The following year Colonel John

Glenn made the fi rst American

orbital fl ight in space, leaving the

Earth’s atmosphere and circling

T h e fi r s t

camera

on the

moon

John Wade takes a look at the

fascinating evolution of cameras

used for space missions

the planet three times. Although

a major landmark in the American

space programme, the only

cameras on board were a Leica,

supplied by NASA, and a modifi ed

Ansco Autoset, which Glenn

bought at a local drug store.

The Autoset was a simple,

non-refl ex, 35mm camera with

manual and automatic exposure.

For its trip into space, the camera

was stripped back to its bare

metal, a pistol grip was attached

to the top with links to the shutter

release and fi lm advance lever and

a direct vision viewfi nder was

attached to the base.

With the pistol grip

held in the astronaut’s

gloved hand, the

camera was used

upside down. The

Leica was only

slightly modifi ed with a

large viewfi nder for use

with a spacesuit visor.

However, given that the

spacecraft’s automatic control

system failed after the fi rst orbit

Hasselblad 500 C,

the model of camera

bought by Walter

Schirra for his flight

© RR AUCTION, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

The iconic visor

shot featuring

Buzz Aldrin, taken

by Neil Armstrong