[APML] Film in Space (was The End of Tech Pan???)

["Jon Kolb" <jkolb@datawest.net>]

Hi Sean,

> I doubt anyone here has plans for a space telescope (which, 
> btw, would require a CCD to function at all).

I don't have plans to build a space telescope any time soon, but there's
no reason it wouldn't work with film.  For many years, spy satellites
used film cameras in space.  When a roll was finished, they'd deorbit a
"honey bucket" with the exposed film inside.  The real fun started when
these things occasionally came down far from where they were supposed to
- the race was on to try and grab the other side's film can, sometimes
snagging them out of the air as they descended on parachutes (which I
believe was a typical retrieval method on one's own territory as well).
I'll bet that a few lives were lost playing this game.

Sure, the resolution may be better with a CCD, especially a
taxpayer-funded CCD, and of course it's far simpler to transmit the
images via downlink than to deorbit film cans, but there's no technical
reason why a film camera won't work in space, as history shows.

Sincerely,
Jon Kolb
Adventures in Astrophotography
http://home.datawest.net/jkolb/
jkolb@datawest.net
719-330-3160



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