Stereo on the Moon

[kirsch@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Russell A. Kirsch)]

Tim Smith inquired:

>I've been in Washington, DC for almost a week attending a trade show and had
>a few hours to visit the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.  It was kind of a
>rushed tour but I ran across something real interesting at the Apollo
>exhibit.  There was a mock landscape with the lunar rover, some tools along
>an very unusual device that one of the astronauts was holding.  The device
>had a canister at the bottom (on the lunar ground).  Attached to the
>canister was a long handle that came up to waist level that resembled an
>upright vacuum cleaner.  After reading the information plaque I discover
>that it was a stereo camera intended to take three dimensional images of
>rocks and surface textures.  Does anyone know if this camera was actually
>used and where these images may reside?  Very interesting.

I asked Leon Kosofsky, who was the project engineer on this stereo project,
about the camera.  He says that it was used on Apollo 11,12, and 14.
Apollo 11 had 25 stereo pairs of the lunar surface including some
footprints.  He believes that the pix are available from NASA Public
Relations office.  Kosofsky is retired many years from NASA but can be
contacted at
Dr. Leon Kosofsky
5817 Phoenix Drive
Bethesda, MD, 20817.

Russell A. Kirsch
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NBS-NIST)
PO Box 157
Clarksburg, MD, 20871
USA
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