posted July 11, 2004 02:21 PM               

Then, I just got an email message from someone who saw the negatives at NASA Langley Museum in the 1980s and he says that he thinks they are the "real deal" - flown film negatives with Lunar pictures. From his description in the email, I do believe he saw it when it was at Langley.

So, does NASA Langley have a museum - is it in a secured area? not for public view? Anyone ever been there? I could not find a mention of it on their website.

Before starting the auction I did a lot of research on the item(s) and found no mention of any real flown negatives being involved.

But it could be... I have been wrong before.

Anyway, I need to make sure about this before the auction closes in a few days. Obviously, I do not want to sell real flown film negatives on Ebay - if it is real. Any ideas how to verify or refute this claim?

I just cannot believe that flown film could just slip out into the public sector. It should be in a vault somewhere - never seeing the light of day - right?

posted July 11, 2004 02:50 PM               

Without actually seeing them, it would be difficult to be absolutely certain. However, I'm going to guess that these are NOT original negatives. Here are my reasons:

- All flown Hasselblad 70mm film from Apollo was DOUBLE-PERFORATED color reversal or b&w negative film. The double-perforations are not consistent with your film.

- Film from the Hycon camera flown on Apollo 14 was 127mm, which is much larger than 70mm.

- Film from the SIM Bay mapping cameras and the Itek panorama cameras also used 127mm film.

- Other than 16mm and some 35mm, these were the only film types used during Apollo.

- None of the actual Lunar Orbiter film was returned to the Earth, so that's also not a possibility.

- Finally, like you, I find it very difficult to think that NASA would have let original film out of their custody.

Hope this helps.

Dave

posted July 18, 2004 07:02 AM               

Regards,