Hasselblad Hassle

[darrenr]

I'm currently engaged in a debate-yes, let's call it that- with an HB on a British newspaper's forum. He's read 'Dark Moon' and now smugly believes that he knows the truth and the rest of us are dupes.

So far, I've been able to counter all of his arguments (not that he acknowledges that, of course) but he keeps returning to the subject of the astronauts Hasselblad cameras, claiming that no modifications were made to protect them from the effects of radiation, therefore the Moon landings never happened. Maddeningly, I've not been able to come up with a definite refutation of this claim.

I know he'd just ignore it anyway, but can anyone give me some ammo to use against him, maybe even recommend a website that definitively lays this to rest?

[laurel]

Welcome to the board.

Modifications were made to protect the cameras from the effects of radiation, and there's a Clavius page discussing it.
www.clavius.org/envradfilm.html

[randombloke]

What radiation?
No, really, ask him what sorts of radiation they needed protection from, how much was actually hitting the surface of the Moon, and what sorts of effects this would be expected to have, then ask why the standard metal case they came with was insufficient.

Not one single one of these HB twerps has ever shown (in my experience, anyway) that they have even the most basic understanding of the difference between particle and EM radiation, nor do they ever seem to be able to find any relevant, verifiable numbers.

Also, this page on Clavius has some of the relevant numbers.

[darrenr]

Hello Laurel, thank you for the welcome!

The clavius.org website was actually the only place I could find that made a reference to radiation protection for the cameras.

Unfortunately, my nemesis quoted (from 'Dark Moon' but still) a Hasselblad representative who said that no anti-radiation modifications were made, or indeed even thought neccessary (which begs the question of why it is an issue, of course).

[trebor]

Jul 23, 2010 15:26:06 GMT -4 darrenr said:

So far, I've been able to counter all of his arguments (not that he acknowledges that, of course) but he keeps returning to the subject of the astronauts Hasselblad cameras, claiming that no modifications were made to protect them from the effects of radiation, therefore the Moon landings never happened. Maddeningly, I've not been able to come up with a definite refutation of this claim.

There was a satellite which in 1967 tested 17 different film types in orbit, both without and with shielding (1cm polycarbonate) over 10 days.
See :
'SENSITIVITY OF PHOTOGRAPHIC FILM TO NUCLEAR
RADIATION IN NEAR-EARTH MISSIONS' Edward Noon, Richard Brown.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NUCLEAR SCIENCE, VOL. NS-14, NO.6 , DECEMBER 1967

That was testing the sensitivity to the electrons and protons along with any secondary radiation.
Makes interesting reading. Especially considering all the shielding used was 1 cm of plastic.

That and there were many lunar probes which used film. (Both Russian and NASA)
Entirely unmodified film cameras were also used in space prior to Apollo as well.

[ka9q]

Jul 23, 2010 15:51:40 GMT -4 randombloke said:

What radiation?
No, really, ask him what sorts of radiation they needed protection from

Precisely. The layman often just doesn't realize that scientists and engineers apply that word to several very different things: particulate radiation, such as alpha, beta, proton, neutron and heavy ions; and electromagnetic radiation, such as visible light, infrared, ultraviolet. To further confuse things, gamma radiation is electromagnetic, not particulate (unless we want to start discussing wave-particle duality!)

I've had to be careful about who's listening when I use that word in connection with radio signals or with heat transfer in a vacuum. Laymen, especially the many who suffer from radiation phobia, can get pretty worked up about it.

[JayUtah]

Jan Lundberg is held up as the be-all and end-all of Hasselblad expertise on the Apollo cameras. The problem is that he isn't the only person to have worked on the cameras, and his testimony in Dark Moon is often factually wrong.

Hasselblad made the bodies. The film is never in the camera body; it is pressed up against the back of it. The film resides in the magazines. The Hasselblad-compatible longroll magazines were made by a separate company in Hollywood. They are third-party addons authorized by Hasselblad. Lundberg is not an expert in what some other company did.

Your interlocutor is making the mistake of relying upon one single expert when there are literally dozens of experts on the Apollo cameras.

[darrenr]

Thank you all for your help. He's gone away but now I'll certainly have something to use if he comes back.

Though I might not mention the 'made...in Hollywood' bit

[ka9q]

This is a perfect example of a favorite Apollo conspiracist tactic: quote or show an "expert" who can't explain something, and assert that no explanation therefore exists.

A related tactic is to disparage a "pro Apollo" expert by showing that his or her knowledge is incomplete or incorrect in some way irrelevant to the points made by the expert.

A good current example is Jarrah White's recent ambush of Adam Savage regarding Adam's lack of knowledge of moon laser ranging experiments prior to the Apollo program.