Why was NASA shooting black-and-white?

[Darin Boville]

For those interested in NASA Pictures from the moon: check out the book "Full moon" by Michael Light which shows many inspiring pictures from various Apollo missions.

Great book, as is 100 Suns.

--Darin

[8x10 user]

They went back to 70mm 200 ISO Agfa slide film after the space shuttle Columbia disaster. Apparently it was determined that the damage may have been spotted in the launch video and the disaster adverted if they were not using an inferior Digital system.

I believe they choose Agfa over Kodak because Agfas film was available on a conduction base that prevented static discharge from exposing the film during the high operation speeds.

My Brother in Law worked for Ansco/gaf who made millions of square yards of film, and they supplied all the film and processing for Mercury and Gemini. The aero films have the resolution they needed for good evaluation.

[Drew Wiley]

Sorry to disappoint you, Thad, but I was never a candy salesman (I don't like either candy or photographs colored like candy), and I've never been involved with NASA. When my nephew lived with me he was employed at LBL up above UC doing hi-res mapmaking of the backside of the moon. It was all b&w. And over at SFMOMA at one time the did display a really huge composite print of the moon generated from something like that - the detail was incredible; but other than the
wow factor of that per se, I don't quite understand its artistic merit. Surface topography, esp related to relief, often better recognized in b&w. Even old time aerial
stereoscope shots will reveal landform details to such a degree that it makes anything on Google Earth look crude. You need one of those little folding stereo
viewers. If I were planning to land somewhere on a cratered surface like that, I'd certainly want something in black and white to help with the planning.