The Villages - July 2019 - 13

NASA FILE PHOTO

FIVE LUNAR ORBITER MISSIONS WERE LAUNCHED IN 1966 THROUGH
1967 WITH THE PURPOSE OF MAPPING THE LUNAR SURFACE BEFORE THE
APOLLO LANDINGS. THE FILM WAS THEN PROCESSED, SCANNED,
AND THE IMAGES TRANSMITTED BACK TO EARTH.
Frangos often speaks about his time with Kodak at club
"A few of us knew the details, but not the production
meetings around The Villages. In July, he is giving a preworkers," Frangos said. "But others did the processing
and then the analyzing. We just produced the films."
sentation for The Villages Science and Technology Club on
One of the programs Frangos worked on was the LuJuly 23 at 1 p.m. at Bridgeport Recreation Center, and he
invites anyone interested in hearing his story to attend.
nar Orbiter. A series of five unmanned satellites that were
Though much of his work was done in secret, Frangos
jointly developed by Boeing and Kodak, the Lunar Orbiter
enjoys talking about everything he can now that most of
program provided the first-ever photographs from lunar
it is declassified. Photos from space are among the most
orbit - all with the purpose of locating suitable landing
dramatic - and most important - in human history,
sites for Apollo astronauts.
and Frangos helped make many of those photos happen.
The Lunar Orbiter satellites were a technological feat
at the time. Though there were reconnaissance satellites - the Corona, Gambit and Hexagon satellites, according
to Frangos - with cameras in them already, the Lunar Orbiters were traveling
much farther and would need new technology to process and transmit the photos from orbit around the moon.
"We helped make the film that was
used in these satellites as well as the film
containing the chemicals used to process
the film," Frangos said.
The Lunar Orbiter satellites used
technology that was similar to reconnaissance satellites at the time, with the
exception of how the images were sent
to Earth.
On the Lunar Orbiters, images were
converted to signals and then transmitted back to Earth where NASA scientists
could then convert them back to film.
Alternatively, spy satellites in orbit
around Earth held two large film reels
which were more than 130,000 feet
long. When the reels were full, they were
jettisoned and they reentered the atmosphere, where military planes snagged
them in mid-air using large nets.
"When I give my talks, that is the
most sensational thing that people take
away," Frangos said. "They can't believe
it. Then I tell them that all our work was
done in clean rooms and in absolute
darkness - that's when I hear, 'Wow' or
A plaque containing a small piece of the film carried on board the
'What was that again?'"
Apollo 11 Lunar Module, given to Frangos as thanks for his long career with Kodak.
MAGAZINE

The Villages - July 2019

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