Growing up in a suburb outside of Rochester, New York, had its advantages. It was home to Eastman Kodak (later referred to as Kodak), and Xerox (famous for its photocopiers). As a local student, we often went on school trips to both companies. Kodak was working with NASA scientists at the time, on photographic solutions for the Apollo moonshots. Robert Shanebrook, a 21-year-old Kodak employee, helped develop a stereo camera that was used on the Apollo 11 mission. it was called the Apollo Lunar Surface Close-up Camera (ALSCC), and was designed to take pictures of the Moon’s surface in amazing detail. I was about 10 years old when I was visiting a friend who asked me to hold up an oblong corrugated box he was pointing to, one of many scattered about his living room, not the sort of thing I’d been asked to do very often. It wasn’t very heavy and made me wonder why he asked me to lift it. Then he said,’That’s a camera and it’s going to be on the moon in about two months.’ That left a lifelong impression on me, as it would most.
I can’t say for certain but I’m fairly certain it was the same camera as the one mentioned above. For more on Robert Shanebrook, please go to the Kosmo Foto blog: https://kosmofoto.com/2019/07/the-21-year-old-who-helped-build-a-stereo-camera-for-the-moon/
