I’ve been watching some of the early space shots of the Apollo missions, it’s amazing some of the footage and photographs available in recent years. Lately have focused on the Grumman built LM, at Bethpage, NY. The story of this improbable looking spacecraft is simply amazing. So I’ve been downloading operator’s manuals in .pdf form and reading what I can. So I went looking for archival film of it in action.
One thing I didn’t realize - there isn’t much 16mm film of the Astronauts in the Lunar Module, either descent or ascent or on the lunar surface. Lots of shots outside the windows. I thought NASA filmed and/or recorded about every aspect of the missions. I was able to find one (1) film of Apollo 17, lasting about a minute. Is that it??
There’s one hell of an infernal racket going on in there, anybody know what that is exactly? You’ll hear it right away.
That’s Apollo 10, no? The one that ALMOST landed the LEM on the moon (rehearsal for Armstrong and Aldrin a few months later). You probably thought “17” because Cernan was on that, too.
Not sure about the noise – interesting question, and great find!
The LM’s (apart from perhaps Apollo 9) all had a 16mm movie camera. They used them for the well known landing and ascent sequences. However Apollo 10 didn’t land. So I suspect what they did was carry the camera and ran a test movie sequence to ensure everything was working OK as part of the shakedown mission. So Apollo 10 was the only mission that both had a camera and had film to spare from the actual reason a camera was carried.
Actually doing what they did - taking a movie whilst in lunar orbit reproduced the exact use case as near as they could. It will reproduce the time the camera had already been in zero-g, and low atmospheric pressure, what the radiation dose the film had received, etc etc. So they could understand every facet of what might be expected impact in the success of using the camera to capture the main game - landing and ascent. There are copies of every landing and ascent sequence on YouTube.
Film is a pain in that movies eat film, so you can’t really afford to carry much film, as the mass will start to become a problem. Further, NASA seemed to generally want to pre-load all the film, and not require the astronauts to be responsible for changing film in cameras. Changing film in zero-g was probably a recipe for a capsule filled with unspooling film. Doing so in a LM one for a camera filled with grit. (The still cameras used 70mm backs loaded with lots of film, and these backs were exchangeable as pre-loaded units.) Thus the time available for movies was seriously limited by what the camera could physically hold.
All the other stuff we see from the missions was of course on video.
The camera didn’t have sound. They would have re-synced sound from the internal recordings of conversations over the comms mics when the sequence was put together on the ground. The noise is just the general operation of the LM. Air circulation, cooling pumps, etc etc.
I suspect that sequence was shot with a different camera - one not flown in the LM when it was flying alone. The sequence was shot whilst still docked to the CM. So the camera would have gone back to the CM. Probably the same one used to record the fabulous pics of the undocking and docking of the LM, and the free flying LM from the CM.
Actually I will note that the LM crew did also film the CM as they undocked and docked. But mostly you see pics of the LM from the CM.
This sitehas a couple of nice pics of the Apollo 11 landing camera setup.
I meant what is it specifically? It’s OK to say “I don’t know”; that’s some high order annoying (and loud) buzzing though. It’s not apparent in any of the radio transmissions, I’m surprised it didn’t bleed over. At first I wondered if it would interfere with their ability to sleep but I don’t think they ever spent long enough (other than 13 of course) to need a sleep period. It would be interesting to know the total hours flown of the lunar module, I don’t expect they spent anymore time in it than absolutely necessary. Maybe 90 minutes or so per mission?
It’s also sad (sort of) that the LM were unceremoniously crashed into the Moon.
Always makes me feel sad that they crashed them. Then again, even when left in lunar orbit their orbits would be disturbed enough over time that they would eventually intersect the surface. Apollo 10’s LM ascent stage however was never used to ascend from the surface, so it had close to an entire mission’s worth of fuel. So it was able to be sent into a heliocentric orbit. It will still be there when humankind is dust.
The noise of the LM was noted to be something of a disturbance, and did make sleep hard. At least when the astronauts were not dog tired after time on the surface. During Apollo 13 life was tough, and the noise was disturbing. On all missions the astronauts were intended to get some sleep. On the J missions, which were multiple day, multiple many hour excursions, they needed to get as good an amount of sleep as possible. Even the H missions required one night of sleep.
The difference between the sound on that movie and the sound you have with just about every other Apollo video is that it would have been recorded locally in the spacecraft, and was not transmitted back to Earth. Thus the bandwidth and general fidelity is much greater. You don’t hear the background noise on transmissions from the craft because the quality of the audio is so much worse when it has to make it quarter of a million miles. What I would relate the sound to is the sound in a large aircraft’s cockpit. It is similar, with the ventilation system making a constant noise. Listen to the pilots announcements from the cockpit when in flight next time you take a flight and listen for all the noise in that background.
The LM systems were glycol loop cooled, with water evaporators. Which meant that the entire time the LM was operating the various coolant pumps and control systems had to be running. Of course the environmental systems in the LM are more complex than an aircraft’s, with rather more to do. And the LM was pretty primitive inside. Most of the machinery was simply bolted to the metal walls, either inside or outside the LM. It is always going to be loud in there.
Yeah, I know about loud (and annoying) having been a helicopter crewchief. I wondered if during the clip I posted, the noise might have been related to the fuel “mixers” or pumps, for lack of a better term, Aerozine 50 and Nitrogen tetroxide. Were they under power in that clip, or coasting? In other words maybe the noise wasn’t quite so bad at times, or when on the surface. I had thought maybe naively that the LM would be reasonably quiet when on the moon’s surface.
I would expect that such a racket as heard on the recording would bleed over well on radio transmissions. It’s often easy to tell what type aircraft someone is flying by the tone heard on the radio. The internal comms were recorded on tape, are these available for listening in their entirety? I would expect these to be interesting and a little more colorful than the standard fare.
None of the rocket engines used in the LM used pumps. They were all pressure fed. (Big tank of helium supplied the pressure to pressurise the fuel tanks.) One less thing to go wrong. You can be sure that that movie was not taken when the craft was using either of the descent or ascent engines. Far too much to worry about when those were running to play with movie cameras. The attitude control system would probably have been active, but again, no pumps, just pressure fed small rockets that pulse on and off every now and again.
The noise of that clip would be what I would expect was the minimum.
Not sure if NASA ever released the capsule recordings. Some of the Apollo astronauts were known for their colourful language. Pete Conrad was told to deliberately hum a little tune if he was excited, as he was want to express things more saltily. You can hear him happily humming way on the lunar surface.
In that video you can hear Cernan emphatically say “take the rest of it outside”. He means don’t waste the precious few minutes of 16mm film shooting inside the vehicle.
NASA definitely did not record every aspect of the missions, since there was limited film available. Each 16mm film magazine was 130 feet and lasted 3.6 minutes at 24 fps, after which they had to change magazines: Apollo 16 Photographic Equipment
Reducing this to 12 frames/sec increased filming time to 7.2 minutes per magazine, and I think some of the out-the-window moonwalk footage was shot at 1 frame/sec. This was all an effort to maximize shooting time of the limited precious motion picture film they carried.
They had multiple pre-loaded film magazines which they changed multiple times per mission. The exact number of magazines and frame used varied based on mission requirements.
Today we are so accustomed to almost infinite recording time from digital devices, it’s easy to forget how limited film was. 8mm home movie cameras of that same era were no different – each film spool lasted about 3 to 4.5 minutes.
On the subject of noise in the LM, here is the subject covered from the Apollo 11 mission report:
4 . 12 . 6 Lunar Rest Period
The rest period was almost a complete loss. The helmet and gloves were worn to relieve any subconcious anxiety about a loss of cabin pressure and presented no problem. But noise, lighting, and a lower-than desired temperature were annoying . It was uncomfortably cool in the suits , even with water-flow disconnected. Oxygen flow was finally cut off, and the helmets were removed, but the noise from the glycol pumps was then loud enough to interrupt sleep. The window shades did not completely block out light, and the cabin was illuminated by a combination of light through the shades, warning lights, and display lighting. The Commander was resting on the ascent engine cover and was bothered by the light entering through the telescope. The Lunar Module Pilot estimated he slept fitfully for perhaps 2 hours and the Commander did not sleep at all, even though body positioning was not a problem. Because of the reduced gravity, the positions on the floor and on the engine cover were both quite comfortable .
And, finally found a summary of the 16mm film used on Apollo 11. The LM’s Maurer 16mm camera was supplied with 13 magazines, 5 of 64 ASA colour film, and 8 of a high speed colour film (developed at either 160 or 1000 ASA.)
A large component of the on-surface activities were captured at one FPS by this camera, as well as higher frame rates for ascent, descent, and some on surface activities.
And, a bit more digging, finds the entire list of Apollo 10 footage. Surprisingly, they had 18 magazines, and only shot 15 of them. Here is the list of what they used them for:
Magazine – Major subjects
A – Docking of command module to lunar modle within S-IVB
B – Intravehicular activity
C – Lunar surface
D – Lunar surface ; entire moon ; earth
F* – Lunar surface
G* – Lunar surface
H* – Lunar surface; earthrise
I* – Lunar surface
J – Entry
K* – Command and service modules ; lunar surface ; earthrise
L* – Lunar surface ; command and service modules
V – Earth ; lunar surface
W – Lunar sur:face ; earth
Y – Docking after rendezvous ; ascent stage jettison; lunar surface
AA – Intravehicular activity
means that magazine was shot from the LM, all others from the CM.
Bit of further reading on the noise question: Seems on Apollo 10 it was enough of a problem to make it to the mission report.
15.2.7 Cabin Noise
The crew reported that the cabin was noisy, primarily because of the glycol pump. One of the cabin fans was used for approximately 30 minutes and was then turned off because it was not needed. Moulded ear pieces provided significant attenuation of the pump sound but did not eliminate it.
Tests were performed on Lunar Module 8 to verify the use of flexible hoses to isolate the pump from the tubing and act as an attenuator; however, noise was only slightly reduced. Further modification to the lunar module hardware does not appear practical. Therefore earplugs will be obtained for the crew to use during sleep periods.
This anomaly is closed.
Interesting! I’d read about the noise issues but never had an idea of how bad it was till I heard that clip. And it is audible bleeding over on some of the radio transmissions, very distinctive whine.
