According to JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab), which is NASA’s construction company, the Mars probes all have tiny range convection heaters built right into the motherboards and the chips. In a regular PC most likely similar to the one you are reading this on, a tiny fan is needed to remove excess heat. But on a Mars probe it is necessary to keep the electronic circuits from freezing and cracking. So rather than a fan it requires a way to introduce heat back into the chip rather than take it away. But in the case of the Moon cameras used by Neil Armstrong in 1969, there apparently was not the same problem with freezing film to deal with. Yes friends it seems that Mars probes have on board heaters to protect them from the –200 degree temps of space, and Moon cams do not. Can anyone explain why?
This brings to mind another story about a NASA hack job entitled The Hasselblad Camera Off-The-Shelf fairy tale. According to a Hasselblad company spokesmen… NASA bought regular camera’s that were available for anyone to purchase, and the only modifications were the addition of a carrying strap and an external shutter exposure button. No heaters, no range convection heater cores and not even so much as a fan exists inside the inner workings of a Hasselblad E series camera.
The challenges faced by these cameras while in use on the Moon makes for a very interesting story. Its enough when one considers the inner mechanism in an absolute Zero environment, yet the cold taking its toll on the mechanics is not the real issue. These mechanical difficulties give way however to the one Achilles Heel that the entire camera system has and that’s the film, not the camera. The Polaroid film in the camera used a liquid emulsion made up of chemicals that have a very low tolerance for heat and cold variances. In plain talk, the film will freeze at just around 30 degree’s Fahrenheit and will boil and melt at just over 133 degrees Fahrenheit.
Please understand that unexposed film and exposed film are two different things. While the exposed film may take a greater heat value unexposed film will have it’s strip of chemicals either melted or frozen. Not to mention the cold drains the high definition colors out of the exposed film and makes the colors drab. And just another good reason for NASA to have the photos sent out and painted by hand. This practice has gone on far too long and NASA is much in need of an overhaul.
When the eyesight of the public has been restored to it we will all take a collective step back and look at agencies such as NASA and others. And then we will decide to do the right thing by ending big government and the Alphabet agencies one-by-one. Wars have been falsely begun because of the lies told by federal agencies that have absolutely no outside intervention or policing agencies like Internal Affairs or something. Think about it, Internal Affairs for NASA? Who ever heard of such a thing anyway? Maybe it’s past time that we did.
Learn more about Mars rover temp controls
Learn more about Mars rovers temp control settings
