I purchased Mighty Saturns - lots and lots of footage on that DVD!One question: how did they insulate a camera such that it could operate in the midst of LH?
Quote from: EE Scott on 10/31/2008 05:43 pmI purchased Mighty Saturns - lots and lots of footage on that DVD!One question: how did they insulate a camera such that it could operate in the midst of LH?Now, how do you light the interior of a liquid hydrogen tank? - Ed Kyle
If memory serves, they used an early version of optical fibers - a bundle of them - to "extend" the camera view into the tank even though the camera was outside the tank. Quartz viewports were used with some cameras as well.
The camera was part of a recoverable pod system. I don't immediately recall if the entire camera, or just the film, was ejected to parachute to the Atlantic for recovery.
Notice also that they had to light the interior of the tanks in order to film them. Now, how do you light the interior of a liquid hydrogen tank?
By the way, which Saturn flights carried cameras? I've now seen film from SA-5, AS-201 and AS-501, and AS-203 must have had cameras too, for the hydrogen experiment. Any others?
Quote from: Proponent on 11/03/2008 09:54 amBy the way, which Saturn flights carried cameras? I've now seen film from SA-5, AS-201 and AS-501, and AS-203 must have had cameras too, for the hydrogen experiment. Any others?IIRC, AS-503 had camera(s) onboard, there's recovered footage of LOX tank slosh though in poor quality. I don't know if there were other camera pods that weren't successfully recovered. AS-502 also had cameras, the famous S-IC drop and interstage separation footage is from Apollo 6. Hmmm, or was it Apollo 4?
I looked at the video and noticed something else at 1:26. Beneath each RL-10, there's a cylindrical frame. It does not appear that the RL-10s are resting on the frames, so what is their purpose?