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Inspiringgenerationstoseebeyond...
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Discoverthestorybehindtheimages. Source:NASAUNLESS 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 circlingT 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 orbitHasselblad 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