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Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
NASA’s famous Apollo 13 mission was launched 50 years ago, and on April 14, the oxygen tank exploded in its Service Module. As you undoubtedly know, the mission landing was canceled after the explosion, sending the three astronauts into a crazy fight with Mission Control to save their lives. Apollo 13 inspired an award-winning film of the same name in 1995 starring Tom Hanks as Commander Jim Lovell.
At Ars, we have narrated the mission aspects in great detail, putting it in the broader context of the Apollo Program, as well as delving into what exactly happened during the mission. For this story, we have a special treat: newly remastered images selected from 70mm Hasselblad photographs and stacked frames from 16mm films.
These images were processed and shared with Ars by Andy Saunders, a real estate developer and semi-professional photographer in Northern England who is an Apollo enthusiast. In recent years, he has spent more and more time going to the Apollo archive to unearth new details from images and movies. (Here you can see a larger version of the damaged Apollo 13 service module).
Andy the artist
Saunders fell in love with the Moon as a child with the gift of a telescope. As she looked at the gray companion, she wondered what it would be like to visit there. After learning about the Apollo Program, he immersed himself in discovering more about astronauts, rockets, and spacecraft. Later in life (now 45), Saunders thought there might be a way to revive the Apollo program.
In particular, he wanted to find more images of Neil Armstrong on the Moon. (Armstrong had the camera, so most of the images are from Buzz Aldrin.) When Saunders reviewed blurry 16mm images recorded by Aldrin from inside the Lunar Module, which showed Armstrong rising to the Moon, he found that three of the images showed something of Armstrong’s face. He stacked all three images together to create a photo showing Armstrong’s face in the historical moment.
“For me, it was almost like being there, really, and going back in time to join them,” Saunders said. “Especially when the clearest images come out. With Armstrong’s image, I almost felt like I was behind the camera, inside the Lunar Module. At the time, only Buzz Aldrin and I had really seen this.” Saunders was hooked.
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This gallery highlights images made from 16mm stacked films. Here, Fred Haise takes a nap, in a before and after picture.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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Lunchtime during the trans-Earth coast. The food on board was mostly lyophilized, which required mixing it with hot water. However, with much of the LM turned off to save energy, the only water available was nearly frozen. Jack Swigert (right) seems to be putting up with that option, while Fred Haise managed with a few peanuts, mini cookie cubes, and bread cubes. Jim Lovell (left) ate very little on the way back; hot dogs that had been frozen were definitely not attractive. In fact, he lost 14 pounds the entire trip.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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This image shows, in some detail, the dark, cold, and dull Command Module Odyssey before the crew re-inhabits the affected spacecraft for the final critical part of the mission. Having been shutdown since shortly after the explosion, a detailed starting procedure was determined to conserve what little power was left in the CM batteries. The large docking hatch is highlighted in the image, and details on the instrument’s control panels are visible around the window.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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One surprising thing about the 16mm footage is how calm the crew members seem given the severity of the situation, the conditions and the critical mission tasks that lie ahead. This perhaps hides the true feelings of the astronauts, as we know that the crew was actually uncertain whether they would make it home alive. This remarkably clear picture shows Commander Jim Lovell’s attempt at normalcy selecting some music on the portable tape player while Jack Swigert is hiding in the storage area taking a nap (right).
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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This image shows Lovell (left), Swigert (center), and Haise (top right) together as they prepare for reentry. Lovell rubs his hands together to stay warm in near-freezing conditions as they discuss the details of the “CSM Apollo 13 Entry Check List,” which contained the procedures necessary for re-entry of the Command Module into Earth’s atmosphere. .
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
The astronauts took about 20,000 images on Hasselblad cameras during the Apollo Program, and they were kept in a vault at the Johnson Space Center. Periodically, the space agency will re-scan this film and release new versions of the images. Recently, Saunders said, the space agency released new, raw 1.3GB versions of each image, an upgrade from previous 10MB JPEG versions. By using photo-editing tools, Saunders has been able to make processing these images more difficult to bring out more detail in images that were once brushed aside as too blurry or uninteresting.
Stacking images
A second technique is to stack images from 16mm video film, often captured by astronauts floating in the Command Module with a handheld camera. In each frame, Saunders said, there is signal and noise. The noise is completely random, so it will be dispersed from one frame to another. But the signal in each frame will be more or less the same. Therefore, in slow motion video, there are several frames showing the same scene. By “stacking” these frames, the signal arrives while the noise can be averaged. This increase in the signal-to-noise ratio produces a clearer and more detailed scene.
Saunders sometimes makes this stack by hand and sometimes uses free software used by astronomy photographers. More pictures lead to better images. Saunders said he has processed Apollo images of up to 300 stacked frames. “It’s a complex job that takes a long time,” said Saunders. “But this is such an important film. If this allows the general public to see more, it is worth the effort.”
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This gallery features processed Hasselblad images. This photo, from a high-resolution underexposed scan, shows the dark LM with most of its systems turned off. Above the “8-ball” are some handwritten notes, a reminder that the LM was now being flown in a very different way than they had trained over the years.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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Here is the raw version of the image above, showing the dashboard. Instead of using the descent engine to land on the Moon, the crew was using it to take them, and the Command Module, home. Flying this “pile” of LM and CSM was “like flying with an elephant on its back,” according to Jim Lovell.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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Great image of the Moon taken when the crew passed the other side.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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The Moon as seen through the LM window. Lovell chose not to look too much as he passed, having seen him before in Apollo 8, and no doubt feeling the disappointment of the missed landing.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
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A photo of the earth. The crew had to manually line up with the Earth terminator during the critical manual course correction burn that brought them home safely.
Andy Saunders / Stephen Slater
While working on the Apollo 13 footage, Saunders said he was surprised by how calm Lovell and the other two crew members, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, appear to be. Much of the film he worked on was filmed in the Lunar Module, after the oxygen tank exploded. The crew was exhausted, cold, and the astronauts found themselves in the worst of situations. And yet they seemed to be in a good mood. “Those are test pilots for you, I guess,” said Saunders.
