That's because analogue film has a resolution based on the size of the chemicals and not a crappy fixed and pixelated digital image! One reason why most films/movies are still recorded on film that can be re-digitised to any digital resolution as digital viewing media slowly improves it's resolution.
@@Axel_Andersen digital is always limited to the fixed pixel sensor, the Crystal's in film are far smaller and the randomness gives a more realistic record.
@@dogwalker666 They're extremely close these days, and both are running up against limits for how much finer the resolution can be. Those limits are actually the same physical laws in both cases - building a sensor on silicon is extremely similar to the process of exposing film itself. Silicon does have the advantage of working with ever-finer wavelengths of light, so the pixels can be finer than film grain, but both can't exceed the limits of optics of visible light. We're already at a point where the quality of the lenses matters more than either film grain or pixel size, even in cameras in phones.
I still find these stage separation videos thrilling to watch today, can you imagine how the engineers must have felt when they got those canisters back a played the footage for the first time? Must have been quite a moment for them. On today's launches we take it for granted - but just imagine being able to see something like that back in the 60's, truly amazing.
It's still thrilling to watch the staging of rocket (Falcon9) today. Yes, it's less majestic than the old Saturns, but the fact we now can get the images in real time and on every launch still get's me every time, and i've watched at least 50 falcon9 launches.
I remember reading about the Corona project in a magazine about 30 years ago when the program was declassified. I remember one of the innovations was Kodak developing an acetate free film stock for use in the extremes of space. As amazing as all of our gadgets are now, there were amazing people creating amazing things that got us here.
That film was polyester based.....the Ektachrome film the Our US Visitors to the moon used was the same emulsion as Ektachrome 64 EPR on a 2.5 mil [2.5/1,000 inch] Polyester base so they could load 200 frames in a Hasselblad 70mm back that normally held 80 frames of normal 5 mil stock.....it was used due to it's neutral color rendition and other factors I believe. The Polyester film is also very tough and almost impossible to tear where the acetate film is easy to tear, also the Polyester film does not shrink or expand like Acetate......I shot many many hundreds of feet to the product in 35 mm and can tell you, you needed scissors to cut when loading to process.....hope this explains a few things....Paul
Just try to imagine the creators of the GP... No one else, at the time, created such and we STILL have it today, 4.5 thousand years later and will have it for thousands of years more! Made by folks who lived, maybe, to age 40-50. Any thought, ever, to how long current tech will survive?
So majestic! For some reason, none of the modern space cam footage comes close to this. Wonderfully researched and edited video! (oh, and great music too!)
Analog film stock still has better dynamic range than the best digital film production camera today... let alone being able to transmit the live feed of an Arri Alexa down to earth in real time.
Well, this footage is also digitized, graded and cleaned up. If you watch the original reels, you'll see a marked difference in quality. Digital photography is lighter, so it's used more now. However, we are still advancing processing power in digital cameras, and sadly, a lot of the market is swayed by movies, instead of documentary; and the technology reflects that. The biggest leaps in filmmaking technology has actually come from documentary filmmaking, especially when it comes to productions like Planet Earth or James Cameron's submarine docs. Productions where gear & equipment are built specifically for the doc. This all being said, there are scenes in Star Wars Episode I that are shot on film, and experts still have yet to find which ones they are...
@@NextToToddliness if you had to perform the same amount of processing on average digital imagery, than was done to the anlog film, you would pretty much end up with a hot mess. Dont get me wrong, good up-to-date digital material would most likely outperform the 60' film stock and the time that has weathered it. The point - at leas the way I understood it was more the range from pitch black to glaring bright and all in-between that is depicted in this old footage. I work with modern film cameras and I would find it hard to achieve the same.
It was never intended to be seen by the general population and it's a miracle of the internet that it's now out here to be seen by all enquiring minds. Thank you
Stunning stuff: I've never seen these films all the way through to the ejection of the canister. Thank you for explaining it so brilliantly. My Patreon dollars going to good use!
Thank you for your amazing video! I used a lot of that footage when I made programs for NASA. I never knew how the film was obtained. I’ve created over 300 videos and films for NASA. Most were overview programs of Space Shuttle missions. I’d get the 3/4” video tape a day after a shuttle landing, spend 72 hours plus writing and editing programs and having a finished video program ready for presentation in NASA’s building one. There was a company called Taft Broadcasting that did almost all the video programs for NASA but it took them 30 days just to process the paperwork before starting a project. I didn’t use paperwork. I just got the footage from Cape overnighted to me and I’d spend 3-4 days producing videos without taking any breaks. I greatly appreciate all the work you did in creating this fantastic video! 👍🏻
paperwork and red tape is the bane of modern life. I think its to blame partly for restricting progress. Id love to get back to a World where things just got done.
...one of those things that I've seen countless times, but never actually stopped to think what I was looking at. What a brilliant video, thank you for taking the time to create, edit, and share.
My questions about the stage separation videos has been answered to the fullest! Thank you Fran, great job! I had no idea it had been this elaborate. Love the video!
I love this kind of deep technical dive into niche topics like this. You answer so many of the followup questions I had along the way. And the footage is just amazing.
as if it was yesterday. life is so interesting and so short. It's not the first time that Fran's video hits me in some indescribable part of my soul. ☮️ Fran, I love you!
Imagine being the first person to see the first footage to come back from a rocket. It's still amazing footage today. Imagine how insane that would be to see that for the first time. Their jaw had to be on the floor.
As always Fran... awesome! The space program managed to transcend into our toys back then, remember the Estes rocket kits of the 70's? I had the earlier Estes "Camroc" which took a picture using a piece of unexposed film and later in my teens had another that used 110 color/IR film. The first picture that came back was amazing.. but needed more altitude and of course you went back to the hobby shop and bought the biggest motors your paper-route could afford, D-6's I think.. so a way to ignite the multiple stages and spit out the motors in succession was derived by my dad and uncle... one was an AME/heli-pilot and the other demolitions -vietnam vet, perfect combination of mentors in those days. The first Astrocam was "lost" for a few months and recovered by a guy turning a field in the spring and saw our names on it, he just dropped it off at the airport -that's what people did back then with things that fell from the sky. I remember waiting for it to be developed, we would get the kodak 110-6 picture because it only took one photo. The pharmacist looked at me and asked where I got the photo from, because he said it looked like a picture taken from a U-2.. haha! It went very high, so high, my dad who was the pilot was amazed. Keep us thinking Fran.. it's fun to delve into the magnetic bubbles once in a while.
Seen it a million times and never thought how they actually did it! The fact that the stages were expendable and were destroyed hadn’t quite registered. So thank you for explaining this, it really is fascinating.
3:15 NASA Electable Camera Pods, they got my vote.. seriously, for some reason I always just assumed the astronauts could see the stage separations video (not that they could do anything from the capsule about a malfunction anyways) but now that you reminded me that this was done with Film Camera Pods, it's pretty amazing that the footage was never live & wasn't viewable until days later after launch
Some amazing footage there, thanks for taking the time and effort to make these easily available for our pleasure. A nice relaxing video to come home and watch after a good night out. ☺
Thank you for this video. I've followed the space flights since I was young. I never knew about this. It's a wonderful nit of information you've compiled.
I had ALWAYS wondered how they did that, thank you for explaining! Also, I’d never seen the footage where the camera rides along on the discarded stage and you get to see the rest of the spacecraft fire up and keep on going.
Absolutely beautiful. And you know I am going to say it, the music is out of this world. I love it. And to think this all happened within just a few decades after the Wright Brothers. Astounding. Thank for sharing. Take care and God Bless from Florida.❤❤
And once again Fran blows my mind, thank you thank you thank you for this upload. The pods were from Apollo 4 and 6!!! REALLY??? I did not know this. The icing on the cake for me though is the LOX tank strobe camera footage. Unbelievable!!! Project Apollo still astounding and gripping me even now. Truly awesome stuff!
Awesome! I've always wanted to see all of these. Even better is your explanation. I have wondered how these could even have come to be. Thanks so very much. You're the greatest Fran!
Stunning footage never thought about films being ejected in a capsule with each stage of the rocket. I thought that the images were saved and returned with the astronauts in the main capsule.
Ah, you're fully a child of the Digital Age!.. 😀 These here ruffians were analogue - flying on the absolute pioneering cutting edge, at the time - with their, "Guidance Computer", that had an entire _4 kilobytes of RAM....._ They only way they were saving a film was to go outside and get it.
@@lewis7515 Square loop ferrite core non volatile memory. Tediously complex and time consuming to make. Heavy and bulky, but very robust and inherently hardened against corruption from cosmic radiation when compared with modern semiconductor technology. IIRC, the RAM modules you mention were all hand made.
The innovation and creativity of those folks still astounds, never knew about this, wondered but never researched. Thank you for all you've been doing to keep our engineering legacy alive. I appreciate that greatly. Cheers!
Oh my gosh, Fran, I never thought of this! I've been a space nut forever, never, ever thought about this! Eject-able film pods, I never would have thought! Thanks for the fantastic content, I learned something that blew my mind! I love that @curiousmarc has seen this!
I was in the military intelligence early 80's. I've handled and printed films from Corona like systems. They were still used in the eighties. The first digital imaging systems were just coming into use then. Between the low resolution imaging sensors and the low power computers ( compared to todays) the images were quite pixilated but intriguing to the possibilities the future might bring. The film systems still had much more quality. We had a, I believe a senior chief ( at least a chief) that did his reserve duty at our command. He was in charge of camera systems from Apollo to the first Shuttles. His photo library was amazing 120 films from the lunar Hasselblads, stills from every angle of the launch pad, and those same films of the pod system. It was always fun when he came in, he taught me a lot about camera and equipment repair. He enjoyed sharing his years of skills. Every time I watch these films I seem to think of "Red Smith" the wonderful documentarian of that era. Probably no one has ever heard of him but he was very dedicated to his mission.
Got to watch these films in 1971 projected by a 16 mm Bell and Howell projector on a large screen. My teacher was in the Air Force and ordered them for the school from NASA. Also saw 16 mm footage of Apollo 11 Moon walk. It was so much clearer than what was live in 1969 on TV.
Oh wow. Child of the 70’s here. The Australian national broadcaster used to show a ‘filler’ from Apollo 11 launch to touchdown. Made it a thing to chase for my adult career. Still love developing colour reversal film. So much better colour rendition for my preferences.
I love the music these awe inspiring clips are set to, it seems so ethereal and perfect. I check the artist, of course it's fantastic Fran! Thank you for making these available to us in such a great way. I learned a lot!
In the very first two minutes of this video I subscribed. Absolutely wonderful and delivered with clear diction and a pleasant voice… I look forward to learning from you and thank you.
Ok, thank you again Fran, 100% moist! I just wanted to ask something about the Apollo 6 S-II pod b, footage. When the ring shaped portion is ejected at the beginning of the footage, why exactly is it lit up as it is? Is it from exhaust fuel burning from the vents in the shot, which would make sense. it just appears that they're not currently firing just then, so I wondered if the atmosphere was that intense/re'entry effects. Or perhaps I peruse the probability of the solar heat/radiation taking responsibility..?
The S-II engines are running. Their exhaust isn't visible (hydrogen, IIRC, so the flame is transparent), but when the exhaust hits the ring it starts burning off the paint on the ring.
When initially separated the upper stage is being pushed by eight solid rocket motors to push the fuel to the bottom of the tank and then the liquid fuelled engines light off. Shortly after the interstage with the burned out solid rocket motors is dropped off.
How amazing that one of the first uses of fibre optics was on these NASA missions , we’ve just had a fibre optic line connected for high speed internet here in France , Their must be many things that were first used in space being used today 🇫🇷 very interesting video
Oh God I needed this! Great explination of a cool technology, and relaxing footage of stage separations. Not to mention her music reminded me of my 4-track cassette recordings I made in the early 90s.
Thanks for presenting this in a compact form with enough detail for techies but not overwhelmed with too much. And ***especially*** showing the FULL FOOTAGE of the entire film, the techies want to see the entire film, not someone else's editing. I was always curious how they retrieved the film though never spent time to find out exactly. And yes Apollo 4 had the best footage, like McDivett took the best EVA photos of Ed White on Gemini 4. About 10 years ago San Diego newspaper (I think) had an article about the engineer for the 16mm camera, retired in San Diego area. Another story I heard is this guy didn't see the footage until some years later. I also think about those that worked on it were thinking of all the things that can go wrong. Then have to wait a long time to see if the damn thing worked. I imagine when they first run it through a projector after developing, "whatever you do, make it doesn't jam in the projector where the bright bulb will burn the film!!!" Old guy here who experienced such a thing with 8mm film projector.
I have been wondering how this was done for a long time! I haven't seen the video yet, very much looking forward to it! Great channel, love your videos!!
Absolutely awesome video and explanation, Fran. Thanks. I got a chill from the last part as I remembered the cameras were attached to the Atlas to understand, confirm, and and ensure the function of a machine designed to carry nukes halfway around the world.
I’ve always wanted to see video of the S1C or even the S2 hitting the water. I do know the S1C for Apollo 4 was witnessed impacting the water by down range personnel however I’ve never heard of existing film of it.
Funny, that never came to my mind, since those pictures are childhood memories. So, thank you for giving a awesome answer to something, I would never have asked!
Wow, that footage is so enigmatic - I could watch that for hours; it's so beautiful and such a great choice of music to accompany the almost surreal visuals.
Fascinating stuff which fills in some of the gaps. The Curious Marc RU-vid channel just recreated the video link using original Apollo era hardware, and it was quite incredible to witness. The American space programme was way ahead of its time.
