The prestige of “winning” the Space Race, I suppose. Personally, I think part of the reason for this Conspiracy Theory was that the video quality was so bad, when much better technology was available. Here’s the reason for that:
The videos from the Apollo missions were just that: video, not film. They were shot by a portable TV camera, and because of the need for the camera to be small and portable, take little power, and most importantly, had to produce a signal that required relatively little bandwidth, they didn’t produce even the then-current broadcast-standard quality. On the first moon landing mission, Apollo 11, the camera that captured Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the moon was a “slow scan” design, shooting black-and-white video at just 10 frames per second, and just 320 lines per frame (which provided the equivalent of about 200 lines in actual delivered resolution). Due to the limitations of both the hardware and the incredibly long signal path, the final images were of limited contrast and had considerable noise and other quality problems. The cameras and the image quality they provided improved steadily through the remaining missions, including the addition of color capability, but the video transmissions could never achieve the quality of studio TV cameras of the day. Remember, this was the late 1960s; it was still over a decade until the first home camcorder – it was a real achievement just to get any video from the moon, considering the environment in which these cameras had to work and the power and bandwidth limitations.
Doug K about 23 hours ago
It appears the Ollie and Quentin may not really be on the moon.
ChessPirate about 21 hours ago
The prestige of “winning” the Space Race, I suppose. Personally, I think part of the reason for this Conspiracy Theory was that the video quality was so bad, when much better technology was available. Here’s the reason for that:
The videos from the Apollo missions were just that: video, not film. They were shot by a portable TV camera, and because of the need for the camera to be small and portable, take little power, and most importantly, had to produce a signal that required relatively little bandwidth, they didn’t produce even the then-current broadcast-standard quality. On the first moon landing mission, Apollo 11, the camera that captured Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the moon was a “slow scan” design, shooting black-and-white video at just 10 frames per second, and just 320 lines per frame (which provided the equivalent of about 200 lines in actual delivered resolution). Due to the limitations of both the hardware and the incredibly long signal path, the final images were of limited contrast and had considerable noise and other quality problems. The cameras and the image quality they provided improved steadily through the remaining missions, including the addition of color capability, but the video transmissions could never achieve the quality of studio TV cameras of the day. Remember, this was the late 1960s; it was still over a decade until the first home camcorder – it was a real achievement just to get any video from the moon, considering the environment in which these cameras had to work and the power and bandwidth limitations.