Guest: Dwight Steven-Boniecki. Topics: Lunar based television and technology. Please note that you are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. We welcomed Dwight Steven-Boniecki to discuss his new Apogee book, "Live TV From the Moon." You can buy this book from the OGLF website and Amazon will make a contribution to The Space Show. Please use this URL when ordering: www.amazon.com/dp/1926592166?tag=onegialeafou-20. During our first segment, Dwight told us about his early interest in the lunar and space program when he was a young boy in Australia. His story advanced to San Diego to working in the film and TV industry and to being very curious as to how some of the Apollo lunar TV footage was made, especially when Neal Armstrong came down the ladder to the lunar surface the first time and we could see it all on live TV. During this first segment, not only does out guest tell how much of the footage and TV video was done, he talked about the help he received in researching the subject for his book. He described the early technology of doing color using the Sequential Color Converter, color wheels in the cameras, and the cameras by Westinghouse and RCA. In the second segment, we talked about the astronaut training involved to work the cameras and broadcast the TV signal back to Earth. Listeners asked about the costs for the TV equipment, training and broacast, and we talked about the debate within NASA as to broadcasting live TV from the Moon. Later in the segment, our guest received a few questions about the Hasselblad still cameras used on the Moon and we talked about their thermal protection modifications. John in Atlanta called in to talk about the Transformer movie conspiracy and the missing 21 minutes and our guest even told us how the Transformer movie came up with the 21 minute gap! We started the third segment with a listener question about the famous golf shot on the Moon and how that was broadcast for TV. Listeners asked about the potential for a lunar reality TV show and as you will hear, Dwight was not too optimistic that such a program would be a sustainable financial success. Later in the segment we talked about Skylab and the use of multiple cameras on the station. Dwight also talked about the camera mounted on the Lunar Rover. As the program neared its end, we talked about going from analog to digital and the system of cameras and color broadcasts on the Space Shuttle through the 90's and then later. At the end of the segment, I asked about depth perception on the lunar surface as shows by a series of photographs in the book. Dwight had much to say about lunar depth perception or the absence of it so don't miss this discussion. Our guest directed us to the website www.livetfromthemoon.com as well as www.apollohoax.net. If you want to contact our guest, you can do so through www.apollohoax.net/contact or you can send your comment or question to me and I will forward it to him. Please put your comment or question on The Space Show Bog as well, using the above URL.
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