- Part 1 - Part 2 -
Chapter VIII. SHOOTING GENERAL AND LONG SHOTS
Let's continue our review of the "lunar" general plans. They will present us with many more discoveries - evidence that they were filmed not on the moon, but in the pavilion.
Not all general shots with the lunar module in the frame were taken with back-side light. There are shots where light hits an object in front (frontal), from the camera. There are many such frames, for example, in the Apollo 11 mission (Fig. VIII-1).
Figure VIII-1. A series of sequential photographs from the Apollo 11 mission.
At first glance, it might seem that such shots contradict our assertion that general shots on the "Moon" are filmed with a back-side light. However, it is not without reason that we emphasized that we are talking precisely about those general plans where the lunar mountains are visible against the background, projected onto the movie screen. And they drew attention to the fact that the rear-side light is used in order not to light up the screen. In those cases, when there is no distant landscape in the background, you can choose a different direction of light. This means that in this case, instead of a reflective screen, there is black velvet hanging in the pavilion, depicting the "blackness" of space. For technological reasons, such filming (with and without a movie screen in the background) is bred in different pavilions. Each pavilion has its own "specialization".
For example, during the filming of "A Space Odyssey" at MGM, 5 pavilions were involved. One of the pavilions was allocated for shooting mock-ups, the other pavilion was used for front projection, the third was used for filming the interior of the space station, etc.
The "lunar" images of the Apollo 11 mission, shown in Fig. VII-1, are also filmed in the pavilion. We see that the photographer is moving away from the lunar module by a maximum of 12-15 meters. And immediately behind the lunar module, where a shadow falls from it on the surface, the "moon" ends, and then, literally in a couple of meters, there is already a "backdrop" of black velvet (Fig. VIII-2).
Promotional video:
Figure VIII-2. Just behind the shadow from the lunar module, the moon ends.
But along with these general plans, testifying to the cramped pavilion, there are shots that, in cinematic terminology, can be called Distant shots. Here, for example, is a shot from the Apollo 14 mission (Fig. VIII-3), which, according to legend, was taken with a Biogon wide-angle lens with a focal length of 60 mm.
Figure VIII-3. Apollo 14, magazine 68 / MM. Snapshot AS14-68-9486.
Knowing the focal length of the Biogon lens (60 mm) mounted on the Haselblade 500 camera from the Apollo 14 mission (Fig. VIII-4), it is possible to calculate the distance to the astronaut.
Figure VIII-4. Camera * Hasselblad 500 * with lens * Biogon * from the Apollo 14 mission.
Since for the Biogon lens the angle between the crosshairs is 10.3 ° (according to NASA), and the figurine is 2 ° in height, it turns out that the astronaut is about 54 meters away. And behind it in the depths to the horizon stretches a space of at least another 100 meters. So, it turns out that we are just facing a gigantic pavilion, exceeding three or even four football fields? How then, if this is a pavilion, illuminate it with a single spotlight?
The answer is actually simple. The pavilion is still small. And the astronaut is not 54 meters away, but only 7. Yes, yes, only 7 meters. The fact is that instead of a real astronaut, a stationary doll about 25 cm high (no more than 30 cm) is installed in the frame. And next to it is a toy model of the lunar module, about 8 times smaller than the real one.
In actual size, these toys look something like the Mythbusters in Episode 104 (Figure VIII-5). It is quite possible that this is the very props that remained from the filming of the lunar epic.
Figure VIII-5. Mythbusters, episode 104 - about the American landing on the moon.
The entire set is again the same area about 30 meters wide. And it is illuminated without any problems with one artificial light source. And so that you don't guess that there are toy objects in the frame, two types of technical defects have been added to the frame. This is, first, deliberate exposure of the entire frame. Instead of the absolute blackness of space, a light gray veil fills the upper part of the frame (Figure VIII-3).
It is possible that the specialists who prepared astronauts for photography on the Moon forgot to warn the astronauts that the sun is shining on the Moon during the day. And the astronauts, as it were, accidentally forgot to take with them hoods that protect the objective lenses from side flares.
Any photographer, not even a professional, but the most ordinary amateur, knows that in sunny weather you need to use a hood. It always comes with the camera (Fig. VIII-6).
Figure: VIII-6. A camera with a lens hood.
And what do we see in lunar expeditions? None of the astronauts thought of using a lens hood during filming. But the front lens of the Biogon lens is very close to the edge of the frame (Fig. VIII-7).
Figure VIII-7. Biogon lens, front view.
Of course, any side light from a bright source will immediately scatter the light in the lenses, however, this flare will not spoil the entire image as much as shown in Figure VII-4. After all, the Distagon lens is an expensive professional optics with multi-layer coating. Coating was invented precisely in order to extinguish the light waves reflected from the surface of the lenses. We saw, see, for example, Fig. VII-1 (in the 7th part), that on modern lenses the sun in the frame does not cause the entire area of the frame to be exposed. This is confirmed by numerous photographs taken over the years from the International Space Station - there is no gray veil covering the entire frame when the sun shines directly into the frame. Why does the "lunar" picture (Fig. VIII-3) look like it was taken with a cheap "soap box"?on which the lens with dirty plastic lenses is installed?
The answer lies in the fact that this increased exposure was added specifically to degrade the quality of the image. According to the legend, dust was provoked by the illumination - no sooner had the photographer on the "Moon" uncovered the camera, when the dust covered the entire camera with a thick layer.
That is why the picture turned out to be defective from a technical point of view. But this is exactly what NASA specialists wanted - to get as many images with technical defects as possible (Figure VIII-8). So, only in one cassette (Magazine 68 / MM), containing 101 "lunar" images, a technical defect was made on 23 images.
Figure VIII-8. Four consecutive shots from the Apollo 14 mission with a deliberate technical defect (cassette 68 / MM).
The second type of marriage, easily readable in pictures with dolls, looks very funny. This is the blur of the image, the so-called "shake". This is especially noticeable in the image AS14-68-9487 (Fig. VIII-9, VIII-10).
Figure VIII-9. Apollo 14, magazine 68 / MM. Snapshot AS14-68-9487.
Figure VIII-10. Fragment of image AS14-68-9487, blurring of the image is clearly visible.
Any photographer will be surprised - well, what kind of blur the image can be in sunny weather at a shutter speed of 1/250 s? After all, it was with such a shutter speed, according to legend, that astronauts filmed lunar landscapes illuminated by the sun (Fig. VIII-11)
Figure VIII-11. Memo for the astronaut on the camera cassette that in sunny weather you need to shoot at a shutter speed of 1/250 s.
The object itself in the frame is completely static (the lunar module is stationary), therefore, the blurring of the image comes from the fact that the camera moves during exposure.
Amateurs often have image blur (the so-called “shake”) when shooting handheld at shutter speeds of 1/30 s and longer. The shutter release button on film cameras is located so that you have to press it from top to bottom. Since there is no support under the camera when shooting handheld (at this time the second hand is focusing the lens) (Fig. VIII-12), when you press the trigger (you have to press hard to overcome the spring resistance), the entire camera starts a short downward movement, and at this moment the frame is exposed. This is how the image is blurred when shooting without a tripod.
Figure VIII-12. To take a picture, the shutter button must be pressed with force from top to bottom.
For photographers, blur was most common in shots taken indoors or in the evening, when there was not enough light, when they had to lengthen the shutter speed. But during the day, in sunny weather, when the exposure time of photographic film lasts less than one hundredth of a second (1/250 or even 1/500 s), smearing was never observed. It is surprising, why did the “stir” appear on the “moon” picture? The surprise will only intensify when we look at the movement of the shutter release button under the lens on the Hasselblad camera (Figure VIII-4). When the shutter is released, the button does not move vertically from top to bottom, but horizontally, in the depth of the camera. In addition, the astronauts' camera is rigidly mounted on a bracket on the spacesuit, at chest levels (Figure VIII-13). In fact, it is analogous to shooting with a tripod at a shutter speed of 1/250 s. How does the blur of the image occur?
Figure VIII-13. The camera was mounted on a bracket on a spacesuit.
Our opinion is completely unambiguous: the strong illumination of the frame and the “shake” was done on purpose to hide the fact that there are dolls and models in the frame.
And since the doll itself cannot walk and jump, then you will not see the "lunar" Distant shots, filmed in video or movie mode, where the small figure of an astronaut walks or runs. For all the Apollo missions, not a single DISTANCE plan was filmed, where the actor-astronaut would have moved away from the shooting point further than 25-27 meters.
Here is the most distant shot with live actors, filmed by a television camera, which we managed to find, this is the Apollo 16 mission: an astronaut runs to the lunar module (Fig. VIII-14):
Figure VIII-14. The astronaut runs towards the lunar module.
In the pavilion where the shooting took place, there is no movie screen in the background, the backdrop is made of black velvet. In such shots, there is no distant lunar landscape in the background.
And if there is no front projection, then the shooting camera is not tied so rigidly to the cinema screen, and the distance can be increased. Here you can move at least 30 meters away.
19 meters from the photographer to the lunar module is the case when there is a live actor in the frame against the background of the lunar mountain (and the mountain is projected onto the movie screen using the front projection method).
This shot was taken with a skewed camera to give the impression of a mountain range, the horizon obstructed by 11 degrees. This can be clearly seen from the fact that the human figure is located not vertically, but at an angle. To trick the viewer and simulate the effect of weak lunar gravity, the shooting speed was increased to 60 frames per second (instead of the normal 24), when projected, a slowdown of 2.5 times is obtained. If we level the horizon and make the projection speed the same as the shooting speed, then we will see how the actor ran in reality: he almost did not raise his legs, shuffled to throw sand around, and minced quickly. Of course it's filmed on Earth.
VIDEO: Apollo 16. The astronaut runs up to the lunar module.
When we see distant shots with a small figurine of an astronaut, instead of living actors, there are stationary dolls about 25 cm high and models of the lunar module and rover on a scale of 1: 8.
For example, in three consecutive frames of the Apollo 15 mission, taken at intervals in time (Fig. VIII-15), we see an absolutely motionless doll, with a fake camera, frozen in the same, difficult to hold position, with a raised left foot ((See Figure VIII-16)
Figure VIII-15. Apollo 15. Three consecutive frames with a stationary doll.
Figure VIII-16. The astronaut's figure is equally frozen in all three frames. This is a doll about 25 cm high.
At a cursory inspection, it seems that the doll is doing something there, changing its position, but in fact it is absolutely motionless. The photographer simply changes his position relative to the subject of the photograph - he not only turns along the axis to the right and tilts the camera up and down, but also moves horizontally, as if walking behind the doll's back.
The next triad of frames (Figure VIII-17) also features a doll.
Figure VIII-17. Apollo 15. Three frames with a toy rover and a doll.
Again, it stands in an unnaturally unstable position (Figure VIII-18), but does not fall just because it is hooked onto a part on the rover with one hand. Only this time, the puppeteers slightly change the position of the doll's body from frame to frame.
Figure VIII-18. The doll froze in an unstable position.
Again, we see a clear horizontal line cutting the frame into approximately two parts - this is the border between the movie screen and the filled soil (Figure VIII-19).
Figure VIII-19. There is a horizontal dividing line in the middle of the frame - the frame consists of two independent parts.
Figure VIII-20. Fragment of the previous frame. The line separating the vertical plane of the screen with a slide (transparency) from the horizontal plane of the pavilion is clearly visible.
A slide with lunar hills and ravines is projected onto the movie screen, which occupies the upper half of the frame (Fig. VIII-20), and the lower half of the frame is the dolls and models placed in the pavilion. Again, we see the use of side light to keep the image from being lit up in the background screen.
What other details indicate that there are dolls in front of us instead of living people? This is the sand in the foreground: it is too coarse. The astronauts were reduced by 8 times, and the sand imitating the lunar regolith was left the same. We know that regolith, in which the bulk of particles is 0.03-1 mm in size, looks more like volcanic ash than river sand. And here, in these photographs (Figure VIII-19), the sand is unnaturally coarse compared to the sand in other photographs where there are no dolls.
And here are the next photos - distant shots with the lunar module and the rover. These are models, reduced copies, at a scale of approximately 1: 8. Probably, the mock-up of the lunar module turned out to be not very plausible, so the frames with the module, as it were, accidentally fell under strong illumination, which made the "blackness" of space turned into "milk" (Fig. VIII-21).
Figure VIII-21. Apollo 15 mission. Distant shots with mock-ups were again exposed to light.
And since these three shots with the toy rover and the lunar module are part of the panorama, closer to the end, then the beginning of the panorama (Fig. VIII-22) is filmed in the same scenery and also with toys.
Figure VIII-22. The frames of the beginning of the panorama.
So the astronaut at the beginning of the panorama is nothing more than a doll frozen in an unstable position. And so that she would not fall, they rested her right hand on the stand (Fig. VIII-23).
I think that the dolls were deliberately filmed in such unstable positions, as if it were a stopped phase of some movement. After all, if you put the doll strictly vertically with hands at the seams, then even a schoolboy will notice the catch and understand that they are trying to deceive him with the help of props.
The Americans managed to make a small copy of the rover quite well, since the rover is an ordinary mechanical device, an inanimate object. Plus, nobody knows what this rover actually looks like up close. And they filmed this toy not only from afar, but even from a relatively close distance. The rover seemed as plausible as collectible car models made to scale seem plausible to us (Figure VIII-24, Figure VIII-25).
Figure VIII-24. Collectible model & quot; Volga M-21 & quot; on a scale of 1: 8.
Figure VIII-25 Vehicle scale models.
But once the astronaut doll was placed on the toy rover, the entire plausibility effect disappeared completely (Figure VII-26). Immediately there was a feeling that a light, motionless doll with no signs of life was sitting on the rover.
Figure VIII-26 A doll on a toy rover from the * Apollo 17 * mission.
If you think that such a frame with a doll in the Apollo 17 mission is the only one, then you are mistaken. There are several dozen such frames! The use of mock-ups and dolls is the most common NASA technique for obtaining long-range shots and lunar landscapes. Three frames of a toy rover and a doll seated on it follow one after another (Fig. VIII-27).
Figure VIII-27 Three consecutive frames from the * Apollo 17 * mission with a toy rover and a stationary doll.
After these three frames, there are three more frames of the same rover, only from a slightly different distance. Of course, this is all filmed in the same scenery. But here's the strange thing: during the time when these three frames were filmed, and then they moved to another place and began to shoot the rover with the astronaut again, the doll did not move a millimeter. It's just some kind of creepy unprofessional puppeteers. After all, it takes a relatively long time to shoot even 3 frames with Hasselblad. The Hasselblad film camera does not shoot as fast as modern digital cameras (in a certain mode, a digital camera can shoot several frames per second). How does Hasselblad shoot? After pressing the shutter release button in the camera, a light slit runs along the film between two moving shutter curtains,after that, the motor turns on to rewind the film to the next frame. This takes about two seconds. It takes a certain amount of time to shoot three shots with the camera panning, then move away to another point in an uncomfortable spacesuit, aim and start shooting a new series of shots. But NASA did not even try to give the shots at least some kind of vital authenticity - they simply stupidly shot the doll without movement three times, moved to another place and again began to shoot the same static object.moved to another place and again began to shoot the same static object.moved to another place and again began to shoot the same static object.
And as you can probably guess, this entire scene with the rover against the backdrop of the lunar landscape, from start to finish, was filmed in the same set. And on all one hundred frames of this cassette, only dolls and models appear. All other panoramas are also props at a scale of 1: 8. The lunar module in the frame is nothing more than a cardboard model (Figure VIII-28).
Figure VIII-28. * Apollo 17 *. The lunar module in the distance is just a cardboard model.
And then dozens of monotonous shots of the rover's passage through the pavilion went in the cassette. Wait. I said that the cadres are "daughters"? Not. There are hundreds of them - frames where we see only the so-called lunar landscape and a fake TV camera in the foreground (Fig. VIII-29).
Figure VIII-29. * Apollo 17 *. A lot of monotonous frames of the supposedly rover's passage among the fake mountains.
Only in one cassette (Magazine 135 / G) we counted 126 such monotonous pictures. And all these pictures are solid props - fake objects instead of real things. And in the next cassette there are about a hundred more frames of similar scenery for puppet shows. And if an astronaut appears in the photograph, as if in the distance, then you should know that this is a doll (Fig. VIII-30).
Figure VIII-30. * Apollo 17 *. To obtain distant shots, dolls are used, and small pebbles are laid out in the foreground.
These astronaut dolls cannot walk, so in photographs they are always immobilized, standing or sitting, frozen in the same position. They do not react to the fact that they are being photographed, they stand rooted to the spot. Only sometimes the puppeteers, as if "for decency", slightly raise the doll's hand in any one frame, but no more. Dolls cannot get close to the photographer - you will never find in any mission a sequence of photo frames when an astronaut from the depth of the frame comes to the middle ground - the dolls themselves cannot walk, and the puppeteer cannot easily approach the doll and move it, even if the distance is dolls are only 5 meters. After all, a puppeteer cannot step on a "lunar landscape" and approach a toy astronaut to correct his hand. The puppeteer has to be lowered on top of the tap every time, and he can inadvertently disturb the miniature pebbles. So photographers shoot on the so-called Moon only panoramas from the same place with motionless astronaut dolls.
The maximum that NASA has come up with is to tilt the camera up and down, so that there is at least some difference in adjacent frames, and in every third frame to make a flare. Here is a comparison of three consecutive images of Fig. VIII-30 and Fig. VIII-31 (nos. 21811, 21812, 21813) and three sequential images (nos. 20758, 20759, 20760) - from the Apollo 17 mission, catalog number NASA is listed below in the last frame of the series. What do we see:
- first shot: subject is centered or below the center of the frame, - second shot: subject is at the top of the frame, - the third shot: the subject is again at the bottom, and the exposure for the entire frame.
Figure VIII-31. * Apollo 17 *. The dolls in the photographs are always immobilized.
When we watch the lunar video, we note to ourselves that the astronauts in the frame are scurrying about continuously, moving in dashes, not stopping for a second. About half of the time they are in the stage of jumping and flying, breaking away from the surface. If someone took pictures of them, then about half of the photographs would have captured the astronauts in flight, hanging "in the air" above the surface. But all photographs, unlike movies, are somehow uniformly static, as if the astronauts are rigidly attached to the surface.
No, not all photographs show astronauts glued to the surface. There are rare exceptions, for example, in the Apollo 15 mission: there is such a picture when the astronaut at the beginning of the jump lifts off the surface - the right leg seems to be "hanging in the air", having risen five centimeters from the sand, and the left leg barely touches the surface in the clean and jerk (Figure VIII-32, left).
Figure VIII-32. The astronaut lifts off the surface at the moment the jump starts (left image).
Of course, this is a leap recorded by the photographer. But what still prevents you from admitting that this is a real astronaut and a real jump? Let's take a look at the shadow. We don't see the head. And the solution here is simple: the shadow of the head, as it were, accidentally fell under the edge of the frame, because there is further there a mount on which the astronaut doll is held in suspension.
There are two more photographs of the astronauts "in flight" while jumping up.
We are not the first to notice this pair of photographs from the Apollo 16 mission, they go under the numbers AS-16-113-1839 and AS-16-113-1840, which means: the Apollo 16 mission, cassette 113, catalog numbers 1839 and 1840 (Figure VIII-33).
Figure: VIII-33. Two consecutive photographs from the Apollo 16 mission.
The photographs show the astronaut at the moment when he jumped. The photos are slightly different from each other. Moreover, judging by the two new footprints that have appeared in the sand - in the photo on the right, it is like two different jumps.
Those who did not notice the catch tried to determine the jump height from the photograph. The shadow of the astronaut is visible in the frame, traces are visible, the moon sand flew off his feet is visible, therefore, the height of the jump can be calculated (Fig. VIII-34).
Figure VIII-34. Astronaut during the jump.
And those who carefully looked at the pictures realized that there was no jump at all. The astronaut did not jump, not the first time, not the second. During the time that these frames were being filmed, he simply hung in the air, was in a suspended state. This becomes obvious when we overlay one image on top of another as a
Fig. VIII-35 (gif). Comparison of two pictures, matching by flag.
The position of the hand placed on the helmet did not change at all, the folds of the spacesuit did not change either on the right or on the left leg, although these are two different "jumps". After all, if these were jumps, then the astronaut had to bend his knees before the second jump in order to make a push, and at least a little, but other folds would form on the spacesuit. What do we see here? Two new deep footprints appeared on the sand under the feet, and the relative position of the legs in the two frames did not change by a millimeter, as if the astronaut did not go down, to the surface - the bends of the legs are absolutely identical. And there is a feeling that the new tracks have been laid independently of the astronaut.
A disappointing conclusion suggests itself - it's a hanging doll. Moreover, so that it does not rotate around its axis, it is suspended on two black threads, and, lowering or pulling one of the threads, the figure of the doll is slightly tilted, which we see when combining these images relative to the astronaut (Fig. VIII-36).
Fig. VIII-36 (gif). The two images are aligned relative to the astronaut.
The facts and details that most of all convince us in the presence of dolls in the "moon" pictures are in the most conspicuous place. As in detective stories about Sherlock Holmes - to hide a thing more securely, it must be put in the most prominent place. So it is with photographs from the moon - the most convincing evidence lies in the most conspicuous place, not somewhere in the distance, in the depths of the picture, but in the foreground. These are the footprints of the astronauts.
There is nothing more contradictory between lunar photos and lunar videos - between static photographs and footage of astronauts moving. As if the photographs and videos were taken by two different film crews who did not know about the existence of each other, and therefore adhered to diametrically opposite principles. In the video, the astronauts shuffle their feet, scatter the sand, so it becomes obvious that no clear marks should remain in the sand with this method of movement (Figure VIII-37).
Fig. VIII-37 (gif). Apollo 14 astronauts are planting a flag.
And when we look at the photos - it's the other way around - all the traces are completely clear, especially in the foreground. For example, here are three photographs from the Apollo 17 mission: close-up, medium-sized and general. In all the photographs, the footprints of astronauts are not only clearly visible, these footprints are deliberately pedaled with their clarity (Fig. VIII-38,39,40).
Figure VIII-38. Large, detail. Deliberately clear traces.
Figure VIII-39. Average size. Deliberately clear footprints in the foreground.
Fig. VIII-40. Distant landscape. Deliberately clear footprints in the foreground.
And at the same time, we cannot find a single video, not a single filming, where, after the astronaut moved, clearly worked out traces would remain in the sand.
Chapter IX. USE OF DOLLS ON THE MOTION
Replacing a person with dolls is quite common in feature films in the 20th century. For the first time, motionless dolls "came to life" in 1910, when Vladislav Starevich made the first puppet cartoon about beetles at A. Khanzhonkov's studio in Moscow.
Inside the doll there is a metal frame with hinges (Fig. IX-1), due to which the mobility of individual parts of the body arises.
Figure IX-1. Hinged frame inside the doll.
Using time-lapse photography, dolls can be made not only to move in space, but also to rotate their heads, move their arms, and perform bends and squats (Figure IX-2).
Figure IX-2. The puppeteer changes the position of the doll's arms and legs for the next kadrik.
VIDEO: THE WORK OF THE PUPPET BREAKER DURING THE CARTOON SHOOTING
To get smooth movements, the puppeteer makes small changes in the positions of the arms and legs, calculated in advance, literally in every frame. This painstaking work takes a lot of time. Shooting a full-length puppet cartoon can take two to three years.
Puppet cartoons provided by NASA as evidence of the presence of people on the moon, as a rule, are made carelessly, in a hurry, I would say - on the "C". The calculation was made on the fact that the astronaut in the spacesuit is a sedentary figure, therefore the dolls in the Apollo missions perform a minimum of movements, most often with one right hand, while the left one hangs in the air at a right angle all the time without movement (Fig. IX -3).
Figure IX-3. A doll with a tassel approaches the camera. The arms of the second doll are bent at the elbow joints at right angles.
In addition, the doll cannot perform not only jumps on the moon - even a simple shuffling of legs with flying sand, so beloved by astronaut actors, the doll will not work - due to the fact that the frames in the cartoon are shot static, but static sand is not interesting to anyone. Such motionless sand would immediately reveal that we are facing a cartoon. Because of this, moving dolls are never shown to their full height, they are removed so that you cannot see the feet stepping on the sand - the dolls are constantly pushing around the camera up to the waist, maximum, knee-deep.
Notice in the video that to simulate the passengers getting off the rover, the camera was shaken … as if the dolls were actually riding this model.
VIDEO: APOLLO-16. DOLL'S TRYING TO REMOVE DUST FROM THE LENS OF THE BOOTH CAMERA.
Even an inexperienced viewer can see that the brush in the hands of the first doll does not even touch the lens, but passes somewhere near the camera. It is similar to how bad actors portray playing the piano - they wave their hands over the keyboard without touching the keys … And the second doll stands almost all the time with its arms outstretched, hanging in the air. Apparently, the puppeteers were inexperienced. Here's a look at this snippet with a repeat.
VIDEO: IS THIS THE DUST FROM THE LENS THIS IS THIS?
You are probably asking why you had to use dolls in such a simple shot? Isn't it easier to put live actors in front of the camera? It would be much more convincing.
But the shot is really tricky. It is like a long long drive on a rover, where at first only one road and a lunar landscape are visible, and at the end of the drive, the "drivers" get off the rover to get out and stand in front of the camera. It is one thing to show only the road, and a completely different impression if a person appears at the beginning or at the end of a long panorama on the Moon. Imagine, you are driving in a car and with a video camera (or cell phone) filming the road through New York through the windshield. And say at the same time that you were there. Perhaps this will not be very convincing, since such a trip can be done without you. But if at the end of the frame you pan from the road to the car's interior, and there you are driving, then such an ending will convince everyone that you are telling the truth.
Travel on the Moon can be done by a lunar rover without a person, clicking a lot of photos of its path. For example, our Soviet lunar rover recorded almost every step of its movement in the photo. From these photographs, you can make a photographic film of the movement of the lunar rover on the moon and get the passage. NASA felt it was necessary to show the astronauts at the end of a long panorama to make the passage convincing.
This shot, which lasts 5 minutes, begins with the fact that the doll appears from behind the left border of the frame and with a wide brush, as it were, erases the dust from the upper shiny surface of the TV camera. At the same time, it can be seen that the upper mirror surface of the TV camera shines with cleanliness, no dust is noticeable, and there is no point in wiping anything there at all (Fig. IX-4).
Figure IX-4. The doll first works with a brush, and then turns the mirror-shiny dummy of the TV camera.
The doll comes back, goes out of the frame, after which the whole picture starts to shake, as if someone is strongly shaking the rover behind the frame with a camera attached to it. This is how NASA tried to portray that the astronaut allegedly climbs onto the rover. Although, as training on Earth shows, the astronaut could not climb onto the rover on his own even in a lightweight props suit. Usually two or three people helped the astronaut climb onto the rover (Figure IX-5). And the astronaut himself could not get off the rover either.
Figure IX-5. Two or three people help the astronaut climb onto and off the rover.
VIDEO: THE ASTRONAUTS COULD NOT HELP ON THE ROVER OR GET OFF IT.
Watch yourself as you, for example, get up from a chair. Your fulcrum, the heels, are on the floor, at some distance from the center of gravity of the body, which is in the middle of the abdomen, somewhere at the height of the navel. To get out of the chair, you must bend strongly forward, so that the center of gravity is exactly above the fulcrum, and only then can you stand up and rise.
Now imagine yourself in the place of an astronaut. You have a life support satchel behind you, which weighs 54 kg (in Earth measurements). This knapsack shifts your center of gravity back to your spine. You sit on the electric vehicle with your legs stretched out in front of the seat. Try it - sit on a chair and stretch your legs forward! Now you need to get up. The fulcrum - the heels - are far in front (Figure IX-6).
Figure IX-6. To get off the rover on his own, the astronaut must bring the center of gravity to a place above the fulcrum.
Can you, as an astronaut in a spacesuit, lean forward so hard that the backpack is on the same vertical line with the heels? No, you can't. Let's try another option. Notice how in ordinary life you get up from a chair. As a rule, in order not to lean forward too much, you move your legs before lifting under the middle of the chair so that your feet are just under the center of gravity. And then, unbending your knees, you easily rise up. Now think, can you, sitting on the rover (look at the picture), bend your knees so that your heels are under the backpack? I think your answer will be unambiguous: it is physically impossible to do this. How, then, get off the rover if there are no two assistants nearby, like on Earth? I bet you will never guess what technique NASA came up with for climbing the rover!This invention is so "ingenious" that NASA was afraid to show it on video. In general, the essence is as follows. The astronaut approaches the rover, stands on the side of it, then jumps high up, at the top of the flight moves towards the rover and, going down, lands with his ass just on the seat … More precisely, he does not “land”, but “lands” on the seat. And as if due to such a jolt, the camera installed on the rover swung sharply, the image jerked violently. In cinema, this is called "reflected action" - when instead of the action itself, we are shown how it is reflected on other objects. The astronaut stood next to the rover … a couple of seconds, the camera shook … and he was already sitting in the rover. The astronaut approaches the rover, stands on the side of it, then jumps high up, at the top of the flight moves towards the rover and, going down, lands with his ass just on the seat … More precisely, he does not “land”, but “lands” on the seat. And as if due to such a jolt, the camera installed on the rover swung sharply, the image jerked violently. In cinema, this is called "reflected action" - when instead of the action itself, we are shown how it is reflected on other objects. The astronaut stood next to the rover … a couple of seconds, the camera shook … and he was already sitting in the rover. The astronaut approaches the rover, stands on the side of it, then jumps high up, at the top of the flight moves towards the rover and, going down, lands with his ass just on the seat … More precisely, he does not “land”, but “lands” on the seat. And as if due to such a jolt, the camera installed on the rover swung sharply, the image jerked violently. In cinema, this is called "reflected action" - when instead of the action itself, we are shown how it is reflected on other objects. The astronaut stood next to the rover … a couple of seconds, the camera shook … and he was already sitting in the rover.the camera mounted on the rover jerked sharply, the image jerked violently. In cinema, this is called "reflected action" - when instead of the action itself, we are shown how it is reflected on other objects. The astronaut stood next to the rover … a couple of seconds, the camera shook … and he was already sitting in the rover.the camera mounted on the rover jerked sharply, the image jerked violently. In cinema, this is called "reflected action" - when instead of the action itself, we are shown how it is reflected on other objects. The astronaut stood next to the rover … a couple of seconds, the camera shook … and he was already sitting in the rover.
After you look again how astronauts on Earth are helped to climb onto the rover, vague doubts will creep in you (as in me at one time): can an astronaut in a heavy spacesuit and with a knapsack behind his back, standing upright, so jump high in order to raise your legs at right angles in flight and land flat on the seat? Can an astronaut climb on and off the rover on his own in some other way? In general, you understand: such an important moment - how an astronaut climbs onto a rover on the Moon - was not recorded in any video.
During these five minutes of continuous filming, we did not see this trick, we are first shown the doll in the foreground, and when it hides outside the frame, the camera is simply shaken, as if the doll has jumped onto a rover. But for some reason, after that, the doll reappears from outside the frame, everything is also waist-deep, no further, turns the TV camera again, leaves the frame, and half a minute after they began to show us this long boring plan, the rover, finally, gets under way and starts moving along the "lunar" landscape.
At the beginning of the drive, you can see that the shadows from the pebbles fall to the right, but after a few seconds - to the left (Figure IX-7), this rover is driving in a circle.
Figure IX-7. The shadow of the pebbles at the beginning of the passage falls to the right, and then, with further advancement, to the left.
The direction of the trajectory changes several times and looks something like this (Figure IX-8):
Figure IX-8. Rover trajectory.
The rover winds around the same spot for a long time and finally stops at the end of the 5th minute. And only then is the scene with two puppets played out (see Figure IX-3). According to NASA defenders, by this time the rover had traveled about 10 km on the lunar surface, and in our opinion, all the movements of the toy rover fit on the set, smaller in size than a football field. On this site, mock-ups of lunar mountains were placed, small craters were dug and small pebbles were scattered. There is such a profession - a layout designer, he makes small copies of various objects. Most often, these models are 8-10 times smaller than real objects (Fig. IX-9, IX-10).
Figure IX-9. Cameraman L. Konovalov near the models.
Figure IX-10. Film director Andrei Tarkovsky checks the model of the house, film * Sacrifice * (1986).
It is physically difficult to look at the rover passages: not because they are boring and nothing happens there for five minutes, not because you immediately feel fake, but because the image jerks all the time in short jerks. The dolls move by freeze frames and make unnatural movements.
The cartoonists who filmed this puppet show were well aware that they would not be able to achieve the believability of human movement from the puppet. It is only relatively recently that a technology has appeared that makes it possible to very accurately copy human movements and transmit them to an inanimate object - “motion capture” - motion capture technology. LED markers or reflective elements are attached to the actor, and the data from these sensors is sent to the computer through the shooting camera. The movement algorithm of the sensors is tied to certain parts of the 3D models, which makes the movement of the models incredibly realistic (Figure IX-11).
Figure IX-11. Motion capture technology, motion capture.
If you do not take into account the experiments with the dancing skeleton in the 1990 film with Schwarzenegger "Total Recall", then we can assume that the ready-to-use motion capture system appeared only in the mid-90s of the 20th century. It was by this time that fast-working computers capable of processing graphics appeared.
A little later, in 2002, in the film "The Lord of the Rings", the technology was used to capture not only movement, but also the facial expressions of the actor's face, and transfer it to a computer 3D character, "perfomance capture". The computer characters began to look truly alive (Figure IX-12).
Figure IX-12. The use of motion capture technology and the actor's facial expressions, * perfomance capture *, in the film * The Lord of the Rings *.
But in 1969-72, there was still no computer technology. The Apollo flight control computer (Figure IX-13), which could perform calculations, was developed at MIT in the early 1960s and had less computer resources than a conventional calculator today.
Figure IX-13. Apollo 11 onboard control computer.
And the shots with the dolls for the Apollo missions were filmed in the pavilion "in the old fashioned way", like an ordinary puppet show - on film, with a slight change in the position of the hands of the astronaut doll from frame to frame. The result is not a very convincing movie, everything looks like an ordinary puppet cartoon.
It should be added here that in the pre-computer era there was still a technology that made it possible to copy human movements with great accuracy and transfer them to the movie screen, to inanimate characters. And this technology gave excellent results. The fact that the results were really great, you can see by watching any Disney cartoon - the movements of the drawn characters are very realistic. The technology is called rotoscoping and was first applied in 1914 by Max Fleischer. The bottom line was that first a living person was filmed on film, and then with the help of a small frame-by-frame projector, the captured image was projected onto one side of the glass, installed vertically, like an easel. On the other side of the glass, there was an artist who, on the celluloid attached to the glass, detailed the necessary elements. And so - frame by frame. And then the pictures on transparent celluloid were re-shot - and a cartoon was obtained in which the drawn character moved in exactly the same way as a living person.
This technique was actively used in the 40s by W. Disney, analyzing the kinematics of the movement of not only people, but also animals. With the help of a rotoscope, the cartoons “Cinderella”, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, “Alice in Wonderland” were made. To avoid the appearance of angular movements in the dances, professional dancers were invited and the artists copied frame by frame the position of the arms, head turns, and the spread of the dancer's dress (Figure IX-14).
Figure IX-14. The dance phases in the cartoon were copied from the movements of a professional dancer.
When you see how naturally and organically not only people but also animals move in Disney cartoons, then you should know that in most cases the movements and angles were obtained by rotoscoping (Fig. IX-15).
Figure IX-15. Examples of rotoscoping from Disney cartoons.
Video about rotoscoping:
From the cartoon "Alice in Wonderland", intermediate moments:
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However, even this technology, which emerged in 1914-15. and well-established in movie studios where cartoons were made, it was not applied to dolls depicting NASA astronauts. After all, you could first shoot the actions of a real actor in a spacesuit, and then on the dolls, one to one, repeat all the changes in the body and arms, from frame to frame. Of course, this is a very painstaking job. For example, at a Disney studio, it sometimes took a whole week to shoot a 20-second snippet. And NASA employees had a different task - every six months for a new mission to issue whole series to the mountain. Therefore, nothing so painstaking was done: either there was a rush (to give the result to a certain number), or excessive self-confidence (that people would not notice the substitution), or the dolls did not move their fingers - in general,the movements of the puppet astronauts were unnaturally clumsy.
Seeing from the first results that it turns out not entirely convincing, the animators came up with and carried out a "trick" to save the situation from failure: the astronauts allegedly saved 16-mm film (the frames were filmed with a film camera), and therefore filmed not at 24 frames per second, but at a speed of 6 fps. And then in the laboratory, each static frame was multiplied (repeated 4 times) to make 24 frames in a second, since 24 fps is the standard frequency of showing a movie in a cinema. The result is short freeze frames, changing 6 times per second. This is how NASA presented this puppet show.
The video was redone again for broadcasting. Since in America the frequency of alternating current is 60 Hz, then the film is shown on television at a speed of 30 frames per second. The video footage of the rover's passage, now posted on U-Tuba, has just been converted to US standards for showing at a speed of 30 fps. And if you examine this frame by frame in the editing program, you will see that 6 frames of the puppet show, shot per second, were turned into 30 frames necessary for showing by duplicating each frame 5 times. The first frame is repeated five times, then the second frame is also repeated 5 times, the third frame is repeated five times, and so on … Because of such freeze frames, “jerky” and jerky movements occur. In our opinion, the trick with freeze frames did not help in any way: the fact that there are dolls in the frame instead of people is still readable unambiguously.
VIDEO: Apollo 16. Two dolls depict dusting the camera:
CHAPTER X. HOW A SPIN OF DUST GATED THE AMERICANS IN LIE
Film is very electrostatic and therefore attracts all kinds of dust and fine hairs. It's just a scourge of some kind. The mechanics servicing the film camera, almost every hour during the shooting day, open the movie camera and blow the frame of the film channel, the frame window with a special can of compressed air. If this is not done, or is rarely done, then all kinds of hairs and dust attracted by the film will reach the frame window and hang there at the edges of the frame window. When filming a feature film, after each long take or after several short ones, the mechanic opens the camera and scans the film channel for the absence of dust, dirt and scratches. The fact is that there is a lot of perforation dust on the film. For example, when I was still working as an assistant operator in the film "There lived a brave captain" ("Mosfilm", 1985) (Fig. X-1),
Figure X-1. On the set of the film "There lived a brave captain." The operator's assistant holds a plate for the color installer in the frame.
we had Soviet negative film DS-5m "Svema" and German film ORWO NC-3, and there was so much perforated microscopic dust on it that you can't even imagine. This dust formed on the film after punching the perforations in the factory. Our camera mechanic cleaned the film channel after each (!) Take!
But even with such measures taken, we sometimes see a hair sticking out in the frame window in films.
Here, for example, is a shot from the film "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession". There is a hair hanging at the bottom right (Figure X-2). In reality, since the lens turns the image upside down, the hair is at the top of the frame window.
Figure X-2. A hair stuck to the edge of the frame.
We can also see dirt in the frame and hairs in Hollywood films. Take Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, for example.
See? There, a healthy hair dangles (Figure X-3).
Figure: X-3. Hair in the frame. Film "Barry Lyndon".
VIDEO: HAIR IN THE FRAME OF MOVIES.
Please note that the hair disappears when the plan changes - when in the editing, following the plan with a hair, there is a plan shot either at a different time or in a different place.
Or in the film itself: (time 2:56:16)
After the words "Should we get down to business?"
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Why am I talking in such detail about these hairs and dirt in the frame?
The fact is that there is dirt and hairs on the frame of the frame window in the lunar frames.
And if it (mud) suddenly disappears, then this usually means that the next plan was filmed at another time and, possibly, in another place.
Take NASA's Apollo 15 Mission Footage, for example, which is a long rover ride across the lunar landscape. As conceived by NASA, these passages were made with a 16 mm movie camera (Figure X-4) mounted on the rover on the right side (in the direction of travel) (Figure X-5).
Figure X-4. 16mm movie camera * Maurer *.
Figure X-5. The 16mm movie camera was mounted on the right side of the rover.
This long, tedious journey from the Apollo 15 mission, just like in the Apollo 16 mission, was shot frame by frame, using dolls and models. At first, we only see the front of the rover. At the bottom of the frame, the stuck dirt is clearly visible (Figure X-6).
Figure X-6. Shot with a toy TV camera in the foreground. The stuck mud is taken in the red circle.
After a while, the rover stops and an astronaut doll appears from the left edge of the frame. For two minutes, the doll makes some kind of meaningless movements, such as straightens the antenna, and then, after rough gluing, instead of the doll, a living person appears in the frame. At the same time, the mud disappears. In addition, the background behind the astronaut changes (Figure X-7).
Figure X-7. Fusion of two plans. The mud is gone. The doll (left frame) was replaced with a living person (right frame).
Most likely, there was a break in time between the shooting of the left and right frames, it is possible that the right frame was shot on a completely different cassette and on a completely different day.
And that's what's strange. While the doll was in the frame, and we saw her motionless hand for 39 seconds, the doll did not move a single finger. A whole 39 seconds! But as soon as a living person appeared after gluing, he immediately began to move his hands, move his fingers, twist in his hands some part in the form of two fastened sticks and attach it somewhere to the back of the rover (Figure X-8).
Figure X-8. On the left - the motionless hand of the doll, on the right - the actor moves all his fingers.
APPEARANCE OF A DOLL WITH A FIXED ARM:
Then the actor pretends to get on the rover (Figure X-9, left frame), but since we know that he couldn't do it on his own (without the help of two assistants), this moment is not shown. Just a rough cut follows … and a stationary puppet is already sitting on the rover (Figure X-9, right frame).
Figure X-9. A live actor (left) is replaced by a motionless doll through gluing (right frame).
And, as you probably guessed, that the static (ie, shot with almost no camera movement) plan with a live actor was replaced with a doll so that the doll could "ride" around the pavilion among the papier-mâché mountains. And a living person was shown, so that the viewer thought that before and after this plan, live people were also shown.
This is how this splice looks ON VIDEO (14th minute):
From the stationary doll, the panorama is immediately transferred to the road, to the landscape, the rover drives around the same place, passes the second time along its own track (Fig. X-10).
Figure X-10. Panorama 90 degrees to the right, from the toy camera to the front of the rover.
It is simply physically impossible to make a giant pavilion depicting a lunar landscape (it must be simply incredible in height and width!), But to make models of mountains, place them on a football field and launch a toy car depicting a lunar rover there is an easy task. In addition, for filming dolls, so much light is not required, because all frames are shot completely static, without movement in the frame, and the shutter speed does not have to be 1/250 s, you can take at least one second.
Sometimes, while driving, a part of the wheel appears in the frame, more precisely, the wing above the wheel. But no sand falls from underneath (Figure X-10, right frame), even when the rover is stopped. But I must!
Why do we say that sand should fall off the wheels? Yes, because NASA showed us the passage of this rover from a side point, and we see how every now and then from under the wheels, captured by lugs, sand flies out (Figure X-11):
Figure X-11 (gif). As the rover moves, sand falls off the wheels.
But for some reason, when the camera is transferred to the rover, the sand from under the wheels stops pouring. You watch the minute of travel, the second, the third minute, the fourth, the rover then enters a small hill, then rapidly descends, but the scattering sand is not visible at all. The answer is simple. Long passages are shot frame by frame, like cartoons are shot. We shot one static frame, moved the car forward a little - we shot the next frame, moved the toy car a little more - and again shot a static frame. There is no moving sand anywhere.
And what kind of footage is this, where the rover is filmed from the side view? These are the most famous "lunar" shots - the passage of an astronaut in an electric car on the moon from the Apollo 16 mission. In terms of citation, these frames are in second place. The first place in terms of frequency in various programs about space is occupied by muddy silhouette shots of an astronaut descending the stairs, who is called Armstrong, although it is clear that this actor is about 20 cm shorter in height than Armstrong. And, of course, not a single broadcast about the Moon is complete without the famous rover passage, which embodied the achievements of the cutting edge of engineering - a doll on an electric car.
Chapter XI. MOST FAMOUS MOON TRAVELS
Opinions that dolls appear in lunar photographs instead of real astronauts have from time to time been expressed on the forums. But since such opinions were expressed by non-professionals, they were mostly treated with skepticism.
The feeling of an exploding bomb produced a short interview with Vsevolod Yakubovich, a specialist who had worked in cinema all his life as a cameraman for combined filming, recorded in 2012. V. Yakubovich is known for making combined shots for more than 80 films, including the first domestic disaster film "The Crew", as well as: "The Diamond Hand", "The Same Munchausen", "Midshipmen, Go!" "Aybolit-66" and others. The cameraman immediately determined that there was a doll on a radio-controlled model in the frame.
Figure XI-1. The operator of the combined surveys, V. Yakubovich, comments on the rover's travels on the Moon.
COMBINED SHOOTING OPERATOR V. YAKUBOVICH ABOUT ROVER ON THE MOON:
During the passage, and these are two circles - with distance from the camera and approach - the astronaut never moved his hand. The left hand always hangs in the air parallel to the ground.
Figure XI-2. The astronaut's left arm hangs in the air parallel to the ground all the time and does not move.
Imagine that you are driving a car, your right hand is busy with steering, holding the steering wheel. Now extend your left arm forward so that your forearm, wrist, and hand are parallel to the ground. Will you be able to drive two circles in this position, back and forth, back and forth, with turns, so that your left hand never moves? Have you presented? Have you tried it? Does it work?
Compare these shots with how the astronauts from the Apollo 16 mission behaved on training races on the rover - always the left hand of the driver sitting closer to us rests on his hip near the knee. Moreover, this applies not only to those moments when the rover is stationary, but also when motion is simulated when the front wheels rotate (Figure XI-3).
Figure XI-3. Rover training. It can be seen that the front wheel of the rover is spinning (bottom photo).
Figure XI-4. Practice ride on the rover.
Figure XI-5. Practice ride on the rover. It can be seen from the lubrication of the wheel tread image and from the dusty cloud behind that the rover is moving (bottom photo).
The photographs show that a flip pad with technological instructions is attached to the astronaut's left hand (Figure XI-6).
Figure XI-6. Astronaut's notepad attached to the sleeve.
The notebook is firmly secured with a rubber strap so that the instructions and the procedure are always in sight (Figure XI-7).
Figure XI-7. The notebook is fixed on the sleeve of the spacesuit.
Even when the astronaut got up and made some movements, this notebook was still held in the same place (Figure XI-8).
Figure XI-8. The notebook is rigidly fixed on the sleeve of the spacesuit.
The cameraman Vsevolod Yakubovich was surprised by the fact that this notebook hangs freely at hand during the rover's passage, although this should not be. We, of course, understand that this was done in order to hide the immobility of the doll, so that at least something would move on the rover. But the surprising thing is that the notebook does not swing at hand, but somewhere under the camera, where there is no motivation for it.
In addition, operator V. Yakubovich drew attention to the border separating the foreground fill soil from the image on the background: they differ both in color and texture (Fig. XI-9).
Figure XI-9. On the frames of the rover's passage, the border between the ground in the pavilion (the lower part of the frame) and the transparency in the background (the upper part of the frame) is read.
The cinematographer's conclusion was unambiguous: this is a front projection, known from the movie "A Space Odyssey". The image of the distant lunar hills is projected in the pavilion onto a vertical screen, while the foreground ground is located in the horizontal plane.
If you watch the video of this ride on the U-tube, then it will seem strange to you that the frames of the frame vibrate chaotically in different directions all the time. The fact is that initially the image was filmed with a strong roll, and only relatively recently it was stabilized using the Desaker software so that the rover did not swing up and down.
STABILIZED IMAGE OF ROVER'S PASSAGE:
The reason why the passage of the rover was filmed with a strong shaking, explained the cameraman L. Konovalov. In theory, there should be no shaking, because the shooting was not done with hands - the camera was rigidly attached to the bracket to the spacesuit. And the mass of an astronaut in a spacesuit was about 150 kg. This whole structure is very inert. The shaking was done on purpose to hide the fact that a doll is in front of the camera on the toy rover. Moreover, from the damping vibrations of the shaking, it becomes clear that during the shooting, the edge of the palm was hitting the tripod leg. They especially tried to do the shaking at the moment when the doll moved to face the camera.
HOW WAS ROVER FILMED ON THE MOON? OPINION OF THE FILM OPERATOR:
And here is what the original two minutes drive looked like without image stabilization:
ORIGINAL VIDEO WITHOUT STABILIZATION:
The video is titled “Grand Prix,” as if the astronauts put on a rover race to entertain viewers and demonstrate top speed.
About 15-20 years ago, when the quality of the video picture on the Internet was very low with a resolution of 320x240, it was difficult to understand who was riding the rover. But when a new scan with a FullHD resolution was made from 16-mm film, and the image was stabilized, it immediately became clear that we were facing a stationary doll, whose arm on the console only slightly swayed due to shaking while driving.
Underneath the famous video, one can find rave reviews and concerns that the astronauts on the rover might have traveled too far, and they might not have enough oxygen to return. I confess that we, too, looking at this video, worried that the doll might suffocate from the lack of oxygen in the pavilion.
Why did you need to use a doll, although such a simple passage, it would seem, could well be filmed on a full-size model? The answer is simple: how to make the sand fly out from under the wheels to a great height?
Simple calculations show that at the declared maximum speed of 18 km / h (supposedly the rover was moving in a straight line at this speed), which is 5 m / s, the sand should fly out from under the wheels at an angle of 60 ° to about a height of 5 meters, t.e. significantly (three times) higher than the rover itself. The disagreements in calculating the height of the sand ejection are related to the trajectory along which the sand moves at the moment of separation - tangentially or along the cycloid. When calculating, you should also take into account that the rover does not always move at maximum speed; after turning and starting to move, the speed can be determined as 10 km / h. But even at this speed, the sand should fly out to a height of more than 2 meters, i.e. again higher than the rover itself. It is simply impossible to remove such an outflow of sand on a full-size model, in terrestrial conditions at a sand separation speed of 10 m / s (i.e., 2 times higher,than 5 m / s) sand does not rise to a height of more than 1 meter (Figure XI-10).
Figure XI-10. Under terrestrial conditions, the sand from under the wheels does not rise above 1 meter.
But on a reduced copy, you can easily make a sand outflow above the model (see Fig. XI-11, XI-12).
Figure XI-11. A scaled-down RC model moves through the sand.
Figure XI-12. This is how this model looks like close up.
Chapter XII. THE RUSSIANS COULD GO TO THE MOON IN 1936
If the USSR behaved in the same way as the United States, then we could prove to the whole world that the Russian people visited the moon already in 1936.
Because by that time, by the end of 1935, the first Soviet sci-fi film on the “lunar” theme - “Space Flight” (directed by Vasily Zhuravlev, cameraman - Alexander Galperin) was filmed at Mosfilm. The film is about how the famous astrophysicist Sedykh, the creator of the first space rocket plane, decided to fly to the moon. With academician Sedykh, a graduate student Marina and a young inventor Andryusha, who sneaked into the ship, are flying. Travelers land on the far side of the moon, plant the USSR flag (Fig. XII-1), travel along the lunar mountains, fall into abysses, the elder is filled with a fallen stone, but they come to his aid. In addition, the first lunar expedition manages to locate the previous rocket with a live cat, find snow on the Moon (Fig. XII-2), and then safely return to Earth.
Figure XII-1. A giant leap across the abyss and the installation of the USSR flag on the moon.
Figure XII-2. Snow found on the moon.
In our opinion, this 1935 film gives much more insight into the Moon than all the Apollo expeditions. It is quite obvious that the US astronauts did not even leave the shooting pavilion. The Americans did not show a single high jump on the Moon, all the astronauts just shuffle their feet on the sand, jumping no higher than 10-15 centimeters, and are exclusively engaged in throwing the sand with the toe of their boot. Would anyone really want to say that these shots with astronauts were taken on the Moon (Fig. XII-3)?
Fig. XII-3 (gif). The astronauts are solely concerned with kicking the sand as hard as they can.
But in our, domestic film, the heroes on the Moon make giant leaps, characteristic of low lunar gravity. It is known that it is 6 times weaker on the Moon than on Earth. It is quite possible that the reliability of such jumps owes to the film's consultant, who was the scientist, the founder of astronautics, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
But who was the consultant for NASA, we do not know. But from the video, we understand that there was only one recommendation from the consultant - to kick the sand as hard as possible.
We cut out several fragments from the movie "Space Flight" (for 4 minutes). They're more informative than a few hours of fake Apollo video. As in the Apollo missions, on Space Voyage, dolls appear in frames. But it's even ridiculous to put them side by side: the wonderful movements of the dolls from "Space Voyage" and the wretched mechanical twitching of the dolls in "Apollonias".
VIDEO: Several fragments from the movie "Space Flight" 1935
In 2011, large volumes of water in the form of ice, carbon monoxide, ammonia and silvery metals were found on the Moon, in the Cabeus crater. All these findings were made after a booster rocket fell into a crater in the shadows, launching a NASA satellite into the moon's orbit. After falling from the crater, a dust cloud rose, the content of which was analyzed using the LCROSS satellite. Articles about new discoveries were published in the journal Science.
The fact that there may be tens, or even hundreds of times more water on the Moon than previously thought was first announced by Soviet scientists in the mid-70s of the last century on the basis of soil delivered from the Moon. Although only 324 grams of lunar sand (regolith) were delivered (Figure XII-4), several unexpected discoveries were made (for example, the existence of a layer of non-oxidizable iron and the presence of relatively large amounts of water).
Figure XII-4. Information about the lunar soil delivered to the USSR.
And what discoveries were made on the basis of 382 kg of lunar soil, allegedly delivered by the "Apollo" - history is silent. In any case, nothing was said about the availability of water until 2010. Recent studies by astrophysicists have shown that there may be bodies of water inside the moon. After the launch of the Indian satellite Chandrayaan-1, which, using spectral analysis, determined the chemical composition of ancient volcanic deposits on the surface of the Earth satellite, this news began to be presented as a sensation. The researchers reported that the volcanic rock particles contain 0.05% water by weight, which can be used for future lunar missions.
And according to the plot of the movie "Space Flight", which takes place in 1946, travelers find snow in the caves of the moon! In the film, a version was put forward that these are the frozen remnants of the moon's atmosphere. But be that as it may, back in 1935, filmmakers assumed that something similar to snow could be found on the moon.
Continued: Part 4
Author: Leonid Konovalov