Developer of Apollo 11 Camera shares his insights shortly before his passing
Stan Lebar was the leader of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation team responsible for creating the black and white camera used during the Apollo 11 lunar mission. In 2009, he attended the 40th anniversary event of Apollo 11 at the Newseum, which featured the newly restored Apollo 11 tapes. Mr. Lebar provided insights that deserve our consideration.
2:42 “I have been asked for many years what I thought about when I first saw the camera [images]”.(1)
He goes on to explain what he remembers.
4:59 “What we saw at that point was rather disturbing because it was not what we had simulated and we knew we had a problem and, er, that would, er, concern me for some 40 years, so that’s what I experienced at that point in time and that’s what I remember…”.(1)
At the end of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, Stan Lebar spoke to the global press, sharing a letter he had received that morning. The correspondence was penned by Neil Armstrong and directed to Colin Mckellar.
“I have something that I want to share with you, um, we have a gentleman we had mentioned earlier named Colin Mckellar, who is part of our search team and he’s in Sydney Australia and he’s a historian, besides working with us, he is a historian on Apollo, and he has been, over time, in communication with Neil Armstrong, and they have communicated quite frequently. Now they’re having a big celebration down in Australia for the 40th and he asked Neil, er, if he could write something for them that he could read at this 40th anniversary bash, and he sent me the letter that Neil wrote, it was not a small letter it was quite long, and in it was a paragraph that he pointed my attention to. It’s the only time I ever heard Neil comment on the camera, as he was on the moon and he’s commenting on the camera about when he was on the moon and what he thought at the time. So it’s a rather interesting document because he sort of sums up what most of us felt. So I’d like to read this little excerpt for you and it goes like this."(1)
Neil Armstrong wrote:
1:35 “I remember all the pre-flight testing we were doing on that little black and white image TV camera. In all that testing I never saw a picture successfully transmitted but the chaps assured us that it would and in fact work, and it did. And I was probably the most surprised person in the human race when mission control announced they were getting a picture. So I was never concerned that the picture quality was less then optimum I was just amazed that there was any picture at all.”(1)
Lebar elaborates on the letter written by Neil Armstrong.
2:14 "And I'd like to tell you that going back in time this was never a sure thing. The links from the transmission from the moon to the tracking sites, that the converter, that the huge tracking transmission that went to Houston, all of these, anyone of these, could have caused, if there was any burp at all it could have had a failure and no image. So his comment at the time that it isn’t quality, was less than optimum, our general feeling was when we saw the image that was very degraded, well what we felt at the time, we’ve got a picture! and it was, to us, it was the most unbelievable miracle that anyone could have, that here we had the image and the world saw it. So, it’s an interesting little statement by Neil."(1)
Stan Lebar passed away at the age of 84 on December 23 of that year. His remarks have offered valuable insights, particularly when he expressed, “What we saw at that point was rather disturbing… because it was not what we had simulated and we knew we had a problem”. He had been troubled by this matter for 40 years. NASA currently asserts that the Apollo footage is free from any issues. Those who express skepticism are often labeled as attention seekers or conspiracy theorists. Analyzing the remarks of Neil Armstrong and Stan Lebar raises questions about whether they intended to convey a deeper message.
Neil Armstrong:
- Never saw a picture successfully transmitted during testing
- Was the most surprised person in the human race when mission control announced “we’re getting a picture”
- Was never concerned about the picture quality
- Was just amazed that there was any picture at all
Stan Lebar:
- What we saw at that point was rather disturbing
- It was not what we had simulated
- We knew we had a problem
- It has concerned him for some 40 years.
To make the disaster complete for NASA, a Reuters journalist asks: "Why couldn't you just use the original set that you used to fake this landing in the first place?"(1)
(1) Source Video: youtube
