A secret US spacecraft crashes on the surface of an alien world,
then a dangerous and heroic manned mission is sent to recover it.
Here’s a real-life techno-thriller adventure story with declassified pics for you national-security voyeurs out there.
Note: It was launched on a Titan-IIID, not a Titan-II as the article states. Yeah, there’s a big difference.
Cultural ref: official program-overview vid
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13 Comments!
Having spent a lot of time in sound studios, and being a process cameraman too, I can *almost* appreciate the thought of film at 200 inches per second. In the sound studio, a 2″ tape is going @30″/sec and it’s flying! A ten inch reel lasts 15 minutes. Of course, this was back when they still used tape in sound studios.
They don’t use process cameras anymore either. I’m obsolete. That right there is depressing… to me, anyway.
Penis
It’s hard to appreciate the technology of the day in such a challenge compared to now. Back then folks were still using pay phones with dials on ‘em and typewriters. Star Wars wasn’t even a movie yet and we knew more about the moon than about the deep sea beds.
To get that far is pretty impressive — though why they didn’t have a container with the claw to keep the pieces together makes me scratch my head. Might have recovered a couple more frames.
Now that much data can be stored on the average smart phone memory card. Still a fascinating story.
Yeah, I can hear them now Mech with all of the super-future technology they were using it was such a “simple” thing not to think of. LOL
But I am of the same thinking as to the technology. So blown away at how many of the space tech agencys were involved and how they even CREATED , put it together, launched it, and took the pics it did right down to being able to count every silo those evil basturds had!
I’m watching the vid and the whole story then read the page with pics and was just blown away. I was thinking one thing though: didn’t “the gubbamint” build that?
Was wondering if they didn’t just take the shot film through one of the Kodack drop off locations. Ya know, even get like double prints.
In 1971 I was flying the unclassified 1950s F9F Cougar, referred to as “the last of the Grumman Ironworks”! Teaching student pilots in the Advanced Navy Training Command at Beeville, Texas. Driving a 1968 Camaro convertible with headlight covers that never fucking worked!
I had it in mind that the Earth had just cooled a few years prior………….
That was then and now? Curiousity is laying brodies in the sand of Mars!!!!
Hog, is that sign off short for
“The penis mightier than the sword.”?
Oh, and on the claw, several potential reasons come to mind. First is weight for lift and balance, second is hydraulics. Nope, I can’t calculate or formulate either of those, but I understand they have to be.
Re: the claw (grapple)
I’m guessin’ it’s a pretty standard architecture for underwater salvage. A solid shell wouldn’t be as generally useful and would be harder to pull through the water, thereby upsetting buoyancy/trim/control/’nstuff for the sub (dunno, my knowledge is limited to diving weight belts and fishing gear).
Besides, they weren’t designing the grapple to accommodate film fragility. Reading the reports, it’s clear that the film’s discombobulation was a surprise. It was due to the mechanical shock of hitting the water at high speed (chute failed) and the impact of the surrounding bucket’s structural bits, not pressure differential or seawater exposure. No, the film was pretty much toast by the time it impacted the seabed, and it wouldn’t have made it to the surface no matter how they raised it.
Remember, that incredibly thin and light stuff was designed to survive launch vibrations and a few g’s in a tightly wound spool, then zero-g, then bein’ yanked like mad through the film drive system under tension, then the “bump” of a parachute opening while spooled and, if the aircraft didn’t catch it (a few g’s), landing gently under parachute in the ocean and floating for a while, then scuttling itself if it weren’t found in a reasonable time (not the kind of thing we wanted “them” to get hold of). Smacking into the ocean at up to a few-hundred mph would be a tad outside the design specs. Prob’ly made a helluva splash, though.
I wonder if it was still hot enough to *hiss* and steam when it hit the water.
I mean, this is the kind of stuff the special-effects director is gonna wanna know.
I kinda know what stopping at 300mph & 75Gs feels like. My guess? Hitting the water at 26fucking00mph woulda left me as a large, rainbow colored greasy spot, marking touchdown….Plankton food…
^ Yep, water is non-compressible, so it needs time to get out of the way (i.e. anything over about 20mph hurts). If the water doesn’t have time to flow out of your way, the water-based fluids in your body (also non-compressible) transmit a shock wave which purees the surrounding flesh and organs (see also: hollowpoint bullets). Your dog tag and boot-lace aglets will probably be okay, though.
the water-based fluids in your body
That——-would be mostly——-piss! trust me… (…plus a little bit would be the black juice I squeezed outa the stick…)
^ Bein’ a Marine,
I suspect there was a bit’a vinegar in there, too.
^^^ Touchy!^^^
Speaking of water: Here’s a really boring video of a water jet drill cutting a gear face from 1/4″ aluminum:
Waterjet cutting
It’s working at 90,000 psi (45 tons/sq-in)