Episode 449- Gemini and Mercury Remastered: My Conversation with Andy Saunders
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[00:00:00] JFK: For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond. 

[00:00:08] John Mulnix: This is the Space Shot, episode 449. Gemini and Mercury Remastered my conversation with Andy Saunders. I'm John Mulnix. We're taking a quick break from "The Lunar Era" to chat with Andy about his latest book. Don't worry, part four of "The Lunar Era" will be out later this year.[00:00:30] 

[00:00:30] John Mulnix: Part five. We will wrap up that series and that episode will release in January. It will feature my conversation with Casey Dreier from the Planetary Society. Now without any further delay, let's chat with Andy about his latest book and about some of the awesome projects he's worked on over the past couple years.

[00:00:50] John Mulnix: So today I'm talking with Andy Saunders. He is a bestselling British author, science writer, and one of the world's foremost experts on NASA digital restoration. Um, [00:01:00] I've had him on the podcast before. It's really cool to have him back. Um, since the first time I had you on your work has been exhibited internationally.

[00:01:07] John Mulnix: Your bestselling author, you have your second book out now, which is one of the big things we're gonna talk about, uh, today. Uh, but your first book, Apollo Remastered, um, was released for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, which is pretty awesome. Um, you've also released some of the images, like one of the ones with Neil's, uh, Neil Armstrong's face, clearly visible.[00:01:30] 

[00:01:30] John Mulnix: Uh, one of the only ones of that, um, you restored one of the images of the stricken Apollo 13 spacecraft, which was pretty incredible as well. Um. So Apollo remastered phenomenal first book, but you didn't stop there. You had to, you had to do another one. 'cause we had the Mercury and Gemini programs. And the Mercury and Gemini remastered is, or Gemini remastered is what we're gonna talk about today.

[00:01:53] John Mulnix: So Andy, welcome back to the Space Shot.

[00:01:55] Andy Saunders: Well, thanks for me back on John. 

[00:01:56] Andy Saunders: Yeah, it's been quite a while. Quite a lot's happened I think, in both our [00:02:00] lives since, um, just a little bit. And yeah, I mean, it was always my intention, uh, to do this project. It was the obvious next thing to do, having done Apol re mastered, um, to, to go back in time and do what is in effect the prequel, uh, to look at Mercury and Gemini.

[00:02:19] Andy Saunders: Uh, and that was, you know, when I was working on the Apollo images, in fact, the Apollo nine chapter, um, a lot of people said they loved that, uh, chapter of the book. The Alsos have been like the pre [00:02:30] Apollo chapter, which had some of the Gemini images in them. I'd realized the reason, well, one of the key reasons that the Apollo nine photography is so amazing is they actually took a slightly different camera.

[00:02:40] Andy Saunders: So they took a, a hassle blood super wide camera, didn't make it to the mo Okay. Unfortunately. But it was used on Apollo nine, and it was also used heavily on the latter Gemini emissions. And that's one of the reasons that the photographs from Apollo nine and from, uh, the latter gen machines, just absolutely stunning, but as well as [00:03:00] the, the historical, uh, significance of them.

[00:03:03] Andy Saunders: Like I say it, it was always the plan, um, to work on this book next and yeah, it's fine. Way out. 

[00:03:10] John Mulnix: Having, having both of them. They're both a treat. It's, it's one of those books that it's nice to just pour yourself whatever kind of drink you have, if you have, you know, a couple minutes here and there, even just leaf through random pages.

[00:03:22] John Mulnix: Um, it reads some of the stories that you have and not, you know, not just looking at the pretty pictures, which are just incredible with how you do that. Um, but also the stories of [00:03:30] these missions too. So when you were, when you started the, the first. Process of restoring those Apollo images. I know last time we spoke you were talking about how like it was, it was a process similar, similar to like astrophotography where you were going through and like stacking those photos.

[00:03:46] John Mulnix: Did anything change for. Gini and Mercury? 

[00:03:51] Andy Saunders: Um, no, it's, it's, so the stacking is what I applied to this 16 millimeter film, so that's the movie film that it took. Okay. On Apollo with this DA [00:04:00] camera, they also have 16 millimeter cameras on Mercury and Gemini. So because that's small format film, it's inherently noisy.

[00:04:09] Andy Saunders: Lower quality. And so this stacking technique is perfect for almost making it photo like. Um, for any listeners that we probably have some astro photographers, uh, as part of your audience, and they'll know exactly what stacking is, it's quite difficult to explain why it works. So I give a lot of talks about, you know, the photography and about NASA history and that kind of thing.

[00:04:29] Andy Saunders: And I always try [00:04:30] to explain this in kind of thinking of it in an analog. World. Um, so if you think of, um, let's say you had 10 frames of movie, film, like this Sydney film type, uh, film, and you, you literally cut it with the per scissors. And if you imagine you could put them on top of each other and perfectly in align the image, which is the signal and squish them together and look through it, you can probably imagine that signal, that image gets stronger, but in, but crucially, the noise does not get stronger.

[00:04:57] Andy Saunders: Because the noise is in a random place on [00:05:00] every frame, so you improve the signal to noise ratio and you can just pull out detail that you, it's just invisible in one frame. So it's a really powerful process. So yeah, I applied that first to when I was frustrated that there was no image of Neil Armstrong on the moon.

[00:05:14] Andy Saunders: 'cause he held the camera. Yeah. And that's when I produced that image by using this technique on, on the 16 mil film to produce that first cleared image of him on the moon where you could see his face. It was recognizably Neil Armstrong. That's what set me on this whole path. So [00:05:30] yeah, I've applied that technique to the 16 mil film, mercury, Gemini, and then the other source of film.

[00:05:36] Andy Saunders: And the other crucial bit about both books was using the original flight film. So everything we've seen since back in the day has actually been based on duplicate film because the originals were locks away in this frozen vault in in Houston to maintain its condition, um, and have access to that, having digital scans of that.

[00:05:54] Andy Saunders: And applying some digital processing to it, some time, some effort, we can pull out that kind of [00:06:00] detail that we've, we've never seen before. So the techniques were really very much the same as, as with Apollo. 

[00:06:07] John Mulnix: And it was kind of just with how. The technology for photography at that point in history, we kind of lucked out that there was such, you know, incredible pieces of equipment like the hostel, blood cameras and, you know, some of the Nikon to take these photos.

[00:06:22] John Mulnix: When you're working with like a medium format image, uh, like that large format, how much detail are you able to pull out of those? I mean, [00:06:30] it, it's gotta be a lot once they're scanned in digitally, I would imagine. 

[00:06:33] Andy Saunders: Yeah, I mean the, these scans, so NASA and, uh, who did a project with Arizona State University to.

[00:06:39] Andy Saunders: Digitally scan this original film to get it out the freezer, th it, and scan it, uh, and they scanned it. Uh, just an incredibly high resolution beyond the resolution of the film grain, uh, but more crucially, high Vic depth. So even if, if, if something looks and often does look such as the front covers of, of Vogue books almost completely [00:07:00] black, I'm thinking more the UK edition of Gemini to different image to the us I, I.

[00:07:04] Andy Saunders: Do like that cover of better. I, I will say that's this beautiful picture. Yeah. 

[00:07:08] Andy Saunders: Very si. It's very similar to the Apollo one. And, and they, the, the two books are kind of a set, they're exactly the same size and you've got, it covers everything from the first photograph of the curvature of Earth through to our last steps on the moon.

[00:07:19] Andy Saunders: So they're kind of a set. So the UK edition year has got the Ed White on the cover inside the spacecraft. It's very similar kind of feel to a pal master cover really [00:07:30] underexposed. But so they look flat and relatively uninteresting straits after this scanner. But they do hold an incredible amount of visual information.

[00:07:38] Andy Saunders: So this high bit depth means we're able to basically stretch the contrast. Um, so even though we're working, say on the, the lower end of. Uh, black levels, there is actually a difference that's captured in these scans that we can effectively stretch and start to pull out that detail. Mm-hmm. So, um, yeah.

[00:07:56] Andy Saunders: Brilliant. Scans are allow us to pull out [00:08:00] Yeah. Thing things we've never been able to see before essentially. 

[00:08:04] John Mulnix: you know, when you were working with these images. Did you have like a story in mind that you wanted to tell? Like walk me through the process of like actually sitting down and like go figuring out like the narrative as it were for these books?

[00:08:18] Andy Saunders: Yeah, I mean, it it, it was an important element of both books that they're not just about the stunning imagery. Of course that's kind of the focus of them. But what I really wanted to do, and this is perhaps even more so perhaps with with Mercury and Gemini remastered, [00:08:30] is tell those stories. The human stories people don't know a lot about the Gemini missions.

[00:08:34] Andy Saunders: They wanted to shine a light on those. So what I did with both books is basically break it down mission by mission. And I wanted to tell the story of each mission from launch to splash down. So I had to get all the imagery in chronological order. Um, so an image might be in the book because it's simply visually stunning, or it might be because it's of historical significance in terms of what's happening in it.

[00:08:55] Andy Saunders: It might be something that shows us something we've never seen before, or [00:09:00] it might be something that was actually necessary that maybe not visually stunning, but necessary to tell a story. Because the me missions obviously were a lot shorter. The Gemini missions were, were shorter and to be, you know, they effectively went round and round and back down again, didn't they?

[00:09:16] Andy Saunders: Versus going to the moon. So there, it was easier to tell all of the key things that happened on each mission through these captions. Mm-hmm. So that was part of the decision making process, these different types of images and how do I tell a story, [00:09:30] um, via the captions. So the captions in Mercury and Gemini are.

[00:09:34] Andy Saunders: Much longer than they were in Apollo. Like I say, to com to try and tell the complete. Story, story, but it was, it, I mean, that probably the research for the writing and putting it together was, was as time consuming as actually doing the processing on this book. The historical record for Apollo was pretty good.

[00:09:52] Andy Saunders: I mean, when I, when I was going through it that there were evidently kind of some mistakes and, and, and things, and some patchiness, but Gemini [00:10:00] and then you go back to Mercury, it's, there are, they're much bigger gas. So it took a lot more research to look at. Are there any clues in the imagery? So in, in terms of, let's say they, they shoot a bit of film with a 16 mil film camera that's silent.

[00:10:15] Andy Saunders: And then they'll take a few photographs with one particular camera. And so those are in order, but then they might use a different camera and take, and, and working out the order is very difficult, so I have to look clues in the photographs and it was all kinds of things such as [00:10:30] on, on Mercury, because we've, they were filmed.

[00:10:33] Andy Saunders: Head on, I could. And they had, for example, John Glenn's got the mirror on his chest. We can see the instrument panel reflected. We can see his straps. So for example, boost engine cutoff, I could see his straps change. Um, capsule separation. He'll say in the, in the transcripts, okay, catch separation, green light is on, and I can actually see that light.

[00:10:54] Andy Saunders: I've got maps of each of the instrument consoles and I can actually see the light through the film [00:11:00] command. So I could say, ah, right, there's a mark in the sand. I know exactly where we are. So he used all those kind of visual cues. The mission transcripts that are timestamped were really useful. And it's also those transcripts that held, you know, some of the conversations between the astronauts, which.

[00:11:17] Andy Saunders: When people read the book, I think they'd be quite surprised at just the level of risk that they were taking, particularly during Gemini. You know, they were really 10 missions in 20 months trying to catch up with the Soviets, pushing the boundaries, every [00:11:30] mission building on the next. Um, and like I say, they, they just took some quite extraordinary risk.

[00:11:35] Andy Saunders: And so a lot of that audio that was transcribed is mapped to the imagery in the book to tell, um, to help tell these stories. 

[00:11:45] John Mulnix: Yeah, no, I, the, the Gemini program, the number of missions in such a condensed period of time that they did is just one of the things that I love about that those, those missions, um, at the, just if you [00:12:00] think of mid-century, like photographs, mid, mid-century, just.

[00:12:05] John Mulnix: Kodachrome, I guess a lot. You know, a lot of the films are not necessarily the Kodachrome, but there was different, you know, slightly different, uh, film technology for that. But just the colors on some of those images, they're just so incredibly iconic and I don't know, when you think about a. How we imagined the future.

[00:12:24] John Mulnix: I feel like a lot of that was inspired and kind of influenced by these images from [00:12:30] this program. 

[00:12:30] Andy Saunders: I think you're right. I mean it, it's got such like an intoxicating kind of aesthetic, Gemini, I mean, everything about it. Space. Yeah, the spacecraft. Um, and the way that film captured that and that whole era, um, film was great for, for example, the total range and for capturing the black, these black levels.

[00:12:49] Andy Saunders: Um, so to see a super bright earth against a super black sky. And then we see these what look today like kind of retro, but also still kind of [00:13:00] futuristic, um, suits and spacecraft and these analog control panels. That's something else you wanna do with these books is allow us now. Just to step on board and, and look around, see these pioneers, but also see the insides of the spacecraft.

[00:13:13] Andy Saunders: You know, we look at the SpaceX vehicles today with a touchscreen, um, and we, we suddenly we're hit with a, a, a view of a win Apollo, whether it's, you know, a moon ship of the 1960s or these early, um, mercury and, and a Gemini spacecraft and just how rudimentary and [00:13:30] analog, gloriously analog. They love these dials on switches and gauges.

[00:13:33] Andy Saunders: And that's the other thing I love about the whole era is. They were flying these machines, they weren't flying themselves. Um, and that whole rawness, that boldness, that goal gets an attitude to some extent. The risk taking is, um, but yeah, the view, the, this, this intoxicating view is clearly referenced in modern day sci-fi movies, films like Interstellar.

[00:13:56] Andy Saunders: You'll see all of these references of the way the 70 mil, [00:14:00] uh, film captured 1960s, uh, space exploration. 

[00:14:05] John Mulnix: So, I mean, like, just, I was flipping around as you're talking. I've been leafing through my copy and I just, I looked at one, it was from, uh, Jimi six and seven when that mission, when they rendezvoused and there's an image of the back of the, um, back of one of the Jimi spacecraft, and it's that gold foil, that reflective gold foil versus just the blackness of [00:14:30] space.

[00:14:30] John Mulnix: And it is just. Uh, it's, it's a whole vibe as everybody, as people would say now it's just, just fantastic.

[00:14:37] Andy Saunders: And on Gemini six and seven, of course, that provided that opportunity to, to take photographs of spacecraft. I mean, the first photograph of a spacecraft in space was actually on Gemini four. So there's a lot of firsts in the book.

[00:14:51] Andy Saunders: Um, so the first photograph of a spacecraft in space were taken by Ed White on his spacewalk. So Alexi Lee enough, Soviets did have a camera. [00:15:00] Out on his spacewalk, but his suit ballooned so much he couldn't actually reach the shutter release, so he didn't take any photographs. So that meant that three weeks later when Ed White went up and he could reach the shutter release, he took a camera and he became the first man to take photographs out in the void of space and he captured the Gemini spacecraft.

[00:15:19] Andy Saunders: Um, so cool. So we were able to, to get that first photograph, but Gemini 6A and 7 have allowed us to get really lots of images. Like said they took photographs of each [00:15:30] other. If you flick, I'm, I'm doing this off the top of my head. I would say slightly backwards from where you are. You'll see the one of Jim Lovell through the window, so taken from six A of Gemini, seven, and there is Jim Lovell.

[00:15:45] Andy Saunders: Through the window, of course, they got to within each inches of each other, despite this being the first ever rendezvous in space, they got to within inches of each other flying at, you know, 17 and a half thousand miles an hour. Uh, so yeah, there's some particularly stunning shots [00:16:00] on that mission.

[00:16:01] John Mulnix: Definitely. And I just, the, that, that mission in particular, I mean, spending almost 14 days inside. the Gemini spacecraft. Was there anything that stuck out during Level and Boorman's mission to you from that? You know, I'm sure they took probably a little bit more, a higher number of photos than a lot of the other missions.

[00:16:21] John Mulnix: Was there anything from that mission particular that stood out to you? 

[00:16:26] Andy Saunders: Um, there's one of Frank [00:16:30] Borman in his, um, he could have almost say underwear. Um, I mean, it's the first time we ha the US had. Um, national, outside of the, the, they, you know, this road, they took the space, space suits off. Uh, there's one now, there might even be two Frank Borman in there.

[00:16:47] Andy Saunders: So that's the first photograph of them in the, as they would say now, shirt, uh, shirt, sleeves. Um, and they look pretty tired in some of those photographs too. Um, but [00:17:00] it's the, the transcripts are what? Yes, there's a lot of stunning imagery. There's that, those that take them where you can see them through the windows.

[00:17:07] Andy Saunders: But then when you add in this, uh, the context and what they were saying to each other at the time, for example, um, they said, oh, I can see you, you didn't wipe your. Your mouth after your dinner or, and they mentioned that, that the relative B growth could, because of course Borman and lover had, had, had already been up for, I think it was about 10 days by [00:17:30] the time Gemini six A actually came up to rendezvous.

[00:17:33] John Mulnix: that sounds about right. 

[00:17:34] Andy Saunders: So I just love that kind of, that mix of seeing the imagery and seeing, you know, the way they, um, talk to each other as well. 

[00:17:43] John Mulnix: That's, that's always one of my favorite missions. Um, you know, obviously we, we could talk all day about just all the specifics for this, but what, what other human stories really stood out to you from these programs?

[00:17:57] John Mulnix: I mean, we've talked a little bit about it, but is there anything [00:18:00] when you were researching that stood out to you that really just, you didn't know prior to researching it or restoring the photos?

[00:18:07] Andy Saunders: Um, the way, yes. 

[00:18:10] Andy Saunders: I mean. Again, the, these, um, transcripts, the, when they were talking to each other, away from when they were outta ground contact, it was still, the astronauts would still talk to each other and it was still recorded on tape.

[00:18:23] Andy Saunders: And those conversations mm-hmm. Are particularly fascinating. So, Gemini four, um, [00:18:30] it's quite amusing listening to them talking about the incidents that happened during the Space Walk. For example, when Ed White got back in, um, they couldn't close the hatch. So the had, because it'd been exposed to the colder space, the, the seal had be, had got harder and they really struggled to, to close the hatch.

[00:18:49] Andy Saunders: And they describe what they were doing at the time, like, you know, oh, you, I was holding onto you and I was pulling you down, and we were saying, he, he even, and actually laughing about it, even though, you [00:19:00] know, this was an incredibly tense moment. Of course. Uh, yeah. Also, when Ed, when, uh. Chris Kraft came over the, um, on the mic and said, you know, get back in, ed.

[00:19:15] Andy Saunders: Get back in. Uh, but the thing that surprised me most when they were talking later is mis control. Uh, just read up and said they wanted, they wanted Ed White's, um, views of, of, of [00:19:30] how it went. Did it become disorientated? They were really concerned about that before the flight. And just asked him about his, his experience in general.

[00:19:37] Andy Saunders: And as he was explaining, he just kind of casually said, oh yeah, and then when I was walking on the spacecraft about X, Y, Z, and when I read it, I was walking on the spacecraft and then he just carried on talking about, you know, a lot of technical stuff, but mission control obviously clearly clocked this as well, but it wasn't till the following day that they were talking swed White again and said, you know, [00:20:00] yesterday you said when you were walking on the space graph, but you weren't actually.

[00:20:04] Andy Saunders: Walking on it, were you? And he said, yes. Yeah, I was, I, I got to the back of the adapter section, um, and I got my feet on the, on the top of the spacecraft and the gold umbilical that we can see. Um, he, he tugged on that so he could lock his feet onto top of the spacecraft and, and he pulled the umbilical and he literally walked on the reef of the spacecraft.

[00:20:27] Andy Saunders: And it just hit me that, ah, well, [00:20:30] Alexei Leonov may have been the first space walker. Ed White was the first to literally walk his space. 

[00:20:37] John Mulnix: That's so cool. Uh, I just, the, what they found out doing those first space walks, those first EVAs the importance of things like handrails actually being able to lock your feet in eventually.

[00:20:48] John Mulnix: So like, that's what I love about this program too, is like so many of the things that NASA discovered during Gemini really set the stage for Apollo. 

[00:20:59] Andy Saunders: And they were just [00:21:00] so, so, yeah, so risky. It's even as you're reading it, you're thinking, have they not thought about this particular element? For example, again, of his, of, uh, ed Weiss, EDA, there's a moment where, uh, Jim McDivitt says, um, oh, I've, I've lost you.

[00:21:16] Andy Saunders: I can't see you. Where, where have you gone? And he said, oh, oh, well, I'm at the bat near the adapter section. In fact, I'm near the thruster, so, so don't thrust now. Oh my gosh. I'm reading that. And was that the critical control measure to [00:21:30] ensure that, you know, a hole isn't burnt in the suit in it's instant death, but you know, it's almost like an afterthought.

[00:21:35] Andy Saunders: Oh, by the way, yes. Please don't thrust. Um, and again, it's just that. That was the attitude. It was, we just gotta get on and they learnt, if you like, on the job. Mm-hmm. Um, and then move forward, um, to the next mission. So yeah. And the amount that was covered, you know, all the critical, um, techniques and per and things that would be necessary to be able to reach for the moon on Apollo were all [00:22:00] tested during Gemini long duration space Flight rendezvous, docking, mastering EVAs, but it took them a long time to master EVAs.

[00:22:11] Andy Saunders: Um, you know, Gene Cernan was, you know, he should quite rightly have died out on his EVA. Yeah. Michael Collins lost his, Hasselblad, um, that was cut short. Uh, Richard Gordon was cut short 'cause sweat get into his eye and he would go blind if swept it into the other eye. So his only really by [00:22:30] Gemini 12 and Buzz and who was able to train in a, uh, in a swimming pool.

[00:22:35] Andy Saunders: So, you know, that's where the whole neutral buoyancy training mm-hmm. Kind of started. Finally, you know, NASA got a grip of, yeah, how to maneuver outside of a spacecraft. But again, just in terms of highlighting how rapid things were, it was almost like we set, okay, we had a disaster on that. EVA next EVA.

[00:22:56] Andy Saunders: That was a disaster. Next one nearly died. Oh, buzzes [00:23:00] went well, right? That, that's that ticked off, right? Let's go to the moon. You know, it was all, it is almost like, I mean, as it transpired, there was only one more. EVA before Armstrong and Aldrin, you know, performed the ultimate EVA on Apollo 11, and that was on Apollo nine, Rusty Schweickart.

[00:23:17] Andy Saunders: And that was also cut short. So it just, uh, that was the pace, but that was the attitude that was, we'll catch 'em at the Soviets. This, we've gotta get to the moon first. And they, they took these risks. 

[00:23:29] John Mulnix: Yeah. The, the [00:23:30] appetite for risk during these missions was a little bit higher than we would ever see today really. 

[00:23:37] Andy Saunders: Yeah. And that's why, you know, when I talk to people who don't know a lot about space or space history and they say, why? Well, why haven't we gone back to the moon? But, you know, there hasn't been a political situation, uh, whereby you can a, spend the amount of money or take that level of risk. You know, you can't offer an astronaut a 50 50 chance of coming home anymore.

[00:23:58] Andy Saunders: Um, [00:24:00] you know, everything's gotta be 99%. And, and that takes time. It takes more money. And that's why it's, you know, taken us over past the reason Yeah. Over 55 years to, to go back.

[00:24:11] John Mulnix: Well, and during that, during the amount of time that's passed too, I mean the entire generations have worked and retired since we last stepped foot on the moon.

[00:24:19] John Mulnix: How, how do you think your work really helps inspire and inform, you know, the current and future generations? 

[00:24:28] Andy Saunders: I'm gonna just, uh, if it can go [00:24:30] any, any way at all, um. To do it. That, that'd be incredible. I mean, my objective really is, I, I do want to share this history just with, as, as many people, as as possible.

[00:24:42] Andy Saunders: You know, I'm passionate about it. I get frustrated when. Some people think that Neil Armstrong is the only person that went to the moon, or perhaps nobody went to the moon. I mean, that's even worse, isn't it, Bush? Yeah. Um, a a lot of people just think there was only an Apollo 11. Um, people think, [00:25:00] you know, we just designed a Saturn five and half Neil Armstrong once, and, you know, that's abusive of what it wants to do with this book is it was a process.

[00:25:07] Andy Saunders: Uh, I want to reconnect people with that, with the bravery and the human ingenuity it took to send people into space. For the first time, um, and hopefully gets people excited about the future. Um, so yeah, I mean, Jim Lovell, I've got of course, sadly recently passed away. Yeah. Um, he's featured in the book heavily, um, managed to get him to see it [00:25:30] before he passed away, and he gave us that wonderful quote for, for the back cover.

[00:25:33] Andy Saunders: And what he wants the book to do is just share with the autumn wonder that he experienced when he looked out of that window on those first missions into space. And remind us all. The beauty of our home planet. So if it can go any way to doing that, that would be pretty special.

[00:25:50] John Mulnix: I couldn't agree more. Oh, this is a beautiful sentiment.

[00:25:54] John Mulnix: One of the other ways that you've been reaching a lot of people is the moonwalkers. Can you talk a little bit [00:26:00] about that project, what it was like being involved with something that massive? 

[00:26:04] Andy Saunders: Yeah. It was, um, a, a brilliant experience. I'd seen a Van Gogh experience. Um. On a weekend away. I think it's pre COVID.

[00:26:15] Andy Saunders: Um, yeah. And I went in, my family weren't interested in going in, but I was working on the book at the time and the images, and I thought, let's see this technology. And as soon as I saw it, I thought, oh, you know, why, why project paintings? If you could project high [00:26:30] quality photographs, and I know we've got these panoramas, you could, you know, walk on the moon, uh, in mm-hmm.

[00:26:37] Andy Saunders: In effect. So. I kind of partnered that idea for a while and then I sent this proposal to quite a lot of immersive companies and one got back to me. You'd have, you know, the same idea. Uh, Tom Hanks was involved. Tom had sent them a copy of my book, so he loved Apol Ry Master, uh, awesome. One thing led to the other and Chris Riley involved who, um, a great space [00:27:00] filmmaker based here in the uk And we, I mean, we produced it in about four months time.

[00:27:07] Andy Saunders: Um. And the music's great. You've seen haven't or you've seen the uh, I got to see it. Yeah. I, in Houston, it was incredible. Yeah. So that was, yeah, all kinds of things have, have really come off the back on of, of working on this imagery. And that's, um, brilliant. I do exhibitions, so photographic exhibitions, um, I give talks.

[00:27:28] Andy Saunders: I'm not like IMAX [00:27:30] um, screens and lectures and that kind of thing, so I'm just, you know, I do feel very lucky to be able to work on something that I'm just so. Passionate about.

[00:27:39] John Mulnix: That's pretty

[00:27:40] John Mulnix: sweet. I, I hope we can get you out here to, uh, Kansas at some point. I would absolutely love to get to the Cosmosphere, as you know.

[00:27:46] Andy Saunders: Yeah. Um, yeah. Hopefully next year. 

[00:27:51] John Mulnix: Sounds good. Well, are, are there any other plans that you've got? I mean, we've got a whole nother program. I mean, the shuttle program. Yeah. 

[00:27:59] Andy Saunders: I mean, the obvious [00:28:00] thing, that's another beast. Yeah, it is. It's, it's a, I mean, they used film. Well into the shuttle, um, era. And so it would kind of make sense.

[00:28:08] Andy Saunders: That would be the obvious thing to do, is to do the sequel to Apol ma, um, and cover the whole of, you know, space on film if you like. And Skylab too. Yeah, don't, don't forget Skylab Cover Skylab, uh, Apollo, the Sawyers. So that will kind of be the obvious thing. I just need to be sure. I've been doing this now kind of crazy hours.

[00:28:29] Andy Saunders: Um, [00:28:30] and pretty much nothing else for six and a half to seven years. Um, you know, we, you know, each book is taped a huge amount. Um, not just the right, the processing and then the writing and then the design, and then getting it, you know, the publicity and that kind of thing. So it is at such a big commitment.

[00:28:46] Andy Saunders: I just need to be sure what it is that I would want to do next and may perhaps even revisit Apollo 11. I could, I would quite like to do Apollo in more detail. [00:29:00] 'cause in Apollo already mastered, of course I'm coming whole Apollo program, so I think there is still maybe 30 or 40 images in there. But to cover more of course of that most iconic mission, um, is also an attractive proposition.

[00:29:13] Andy Saunders: But I'm gonna have a year off, first of all my eyes rest, and then think about what's, what's to come. 

[00:29:21] John Mulnix: So one of the big things that in podcasts and social media generally is we see a lot of like AI slop. If you've been on meta or [00:29:30] threads or Twitter this day and age, we're just kind of inundated with fake videos essentially.

[00:29:37] John Mulnix: One of the incredible things about these images is there's no AI processing done on these.

[00:29:44] Andy Saunders: No, and it's a valid point and something that's quite important to, to point out because these are such historically significant images. I didn't want to apply any kind of AI to processing them. Um, I think when you apply AI to a [00:30:00] photograph, you can almost no longer call it a photograph.

[00:30:02] Andy Saunders: You could call it perhaps a piece of art or a representation of, but if we don't know what's been changed by ai, then a photograph just loses all of its provenance. So, because this is just such important historical footage, I didn't ask completely steer clear of ai. Um, my objective really has, has never been to embellish or rein reinvent, but to just reveal, you know, to peel [00:30:30] back the layers of, yeah, aging and degradation and duplication and noise and just to reveal what was always inherent in that film.

[00:30:38] Andy Saunders: Um, but to, to show it in a way we've never been able to see before. And it is clearly, but yet still as, as faithfully as possible. 

[00:30:45] John Mulnix: which is really, I mean, one of the incredible things about a, a camera like, you know, the Bloss and some, just the higher quality cameras today. I mean, if you have an iPhone or a Samsung or whatever your smartphone is, when you take a picture, it's not.

[00:30:59] John Mulnix: Like a picture. [00:31:00] There's so much, uh, apple calls it what computational photography or whatever, and they're basically just baking in all of that stuff. And that's one of the other things that makes these images from the space program so special is this is how that sensor captured the light on the film, you know, 280 some odd thousand miles away for Apollo or, you know, orbiting Earth during Mercury and Gemini.

[00:31:24] John Mulnix: That's why one of the things that I just find so absolutely incredible about these pictures is [00:31:30] you can't fake it. You know? Yeah. I, I talked with, uh, Dr. Roger Launius for a, a current series that I'm doing, and like the moon landing deniers, he was pretty blunt in his assessment of their, their, uh, um, thinking abilities and.

[00:31:47] John Mulnix: Yeah, it's just that's what, you know, these images are so special because it is a literal snapshot of that moment in history. 

[00:31:55] Andy Saunders: Yeah. I mean, I've been through for Apollo 35,000 pieces of [00:32:00] film for Gemini Mercury, another 5,000. You can't fake 35,000 pieces of film. Yeah. It will be literally easier to go to the moon and just take the photographs than it would be.

[00:32:12] Andy Saunders: To, to fake a film. Uh, and you're right in what you say about, you know, the way digital, even just a digital camera now, all kinds of processing is still going on. So what comes outta the other end? I, the beauty, as you say of these photographs is that light hit that film and that's it. [00:32:30] There was not, there was no other kind of interference on.

[00:32:33] Andy Saunders: What I'm working on is the raw, uh, file of that. So I know this is how the light hit that piece of film. And then as I'm processing it, and unfortunately don't need to use AI to get incredible results. I mean, even with the stacking process on the, on the film, I've seen AI have a go at doing this and it's it, at first glance, it looks kind of clean.

[00:32:57] Andy Saunders: You lose detail. Mm-hmm. And if you [00:33:00] inspect it more closely, I mean, it's, it's long looks like a sketch. It's actually not that great at first glance. It runs kind of smooth and things. Um, whereas the stacking technique is an incredibly powerful technique, but doesn't, you know, nothing new is added. Yeah. Or simply taking information from multiple frames and bringing it into one so that we know what we're we're looking at is historically and absolutely correct.

[00:33:23] Andy Saunders: Which for this footage. Is, uh, was, was the only option open. 

[00:33:27] John Mulnix: It's a picture of reality, not [00:33:30] a representation. Yeah. Of reality. Exactly. Yeah. I guess I have, I have one other question. So we, we've got the Artemis missions coming up. Let's say we put Andy Saunders in charge of all of the, you know, the photographs, the video for these missions.

[00:33:46] John Mulnix: What's your, you know, dream kind of setup for them to take to the moon? 

[00:33:52] Andy Saunders: I mean, it would be lovely for them to just take one has blood film camera, and. They're very heavy though. [00:34:00] Say, you know, I've got a couple here in my office. Um, and that's the first thing you notice when you, when you pick up one of these older style cameras, it's just how heavy they are.

[00:34:09] Andy Saunders: And you think about how many of you took in the magazines they took. So of course it's not practical to, to, to take film. Um, but to perhaps to take one camera, the kind of shots, I would love to see something I always dreamed of. And I, and I still imagine being a tranquility, but having a camera tranquility base.

[00:34:26] Andy Saunders: Watching the Eagle come in outta the sky from [00:34:30] earth and land and see Armstrong and Aldrin climb out. That's just this kind of fantasy, visual I have. So it'd be great to have, you know, pros there before the event when we eventually land on the moon and watch these, these earthlings actually arrive. That'd be pretty.

[00:34:48] Andy Saunders: Uh, pretty. I know the crews are, I mean, I was lucky enough to spend some time the, that'd be cool. Two, be crew. Um, 'cause they're involved with the Moonwalker show, they've got lots of copies of a polar master in [00:35:00] the, um, astronaut office for kind of inspiration. I know they're keen and will get great photographs.

[00:35:06] Andy Saunders: Mm-hmm. And the only concern is we will be absolutely inundated with imagery. You know, they'll be, eventually there'll be 360 degree head cams and VR and, um, it'll be ticked up to death. Um, so you got a little bit of a worry. That it will become, will become blase to it. You know, you think of imagery today, it's such a transient [00:35:30] thing, although there's a, there's a whole earth and then it's gone up the sway of a finger and, oh, there's a cat wearing some shoes.

[00:35:38] Andy Saunders: You know? Or what I want to do with the books is. Pause on these photographs, put them into context. Things like the blue marble on Apollo 17. Yes. It's a visually stunning image and we see it a lot, but it's, it's tempting, but like if, if, if a youngster happens to see it on Instagram, they was just, oh, that's, look at that.

[00:35:54] Andy Saunders: That's nice. Flick gone. Uh, but what I wanna do is put 'em into perspective, what photographs was taking just before. [00:36:00] Yeah, just after what was happening. What were the astronauts saying when they were looking at this view and when you could consider the fact that there were three men in a tiny capsule flying.

[00:36:09] Andy Saunders: 20,000 miles an hour away from their home planet and one of them lifted the cameras, the window released the shutter and took that photograph of the whole earth amongst the endless blackness of space. I think it's that context that, uh, really makes images like that hit home. So a hope, you know, there will be another blue marble photograph titan.[00:36:30] 

[00:36:30] Andy Saunders: That people perhaps, uh, take a moment to, to appreciate exactly how it's taken. 

[00:36:35] John Mulnix: You know, that is a perfect spot to end. I love that idea. I mean, links to the book, obviously, I'm gonna include those in the show notes. Are, are there any like websites or ways people should follow you? 

[00:36:45] JFK: Uh, apollo remastered.com is the website.

[00:36:48] JFK: Okay. And then I've got the socials, the Remastered, uh, Facebook page. And then the AndySaunders_1 on the X and Instagram. 

[00:36:59] John Mulnix: Okay. [00:37:00] I'll make sure those are all in the show notes. And Andy, I just wanna say thank you for coming on the podcast again and whenever you make it out to Kansas Coffee, breakfast, lunch, whatever is on me, so perfect.

[00:37:12] John Mulnix: I look forward to that. And thanks again, John. for having me. Of course.

[00:37:16] John Mulnix: That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening to the Space Shot. As always, please leave a rating or review in your podcast platform of choice. It helps more people find out about the show and all of the work that I'm doing here. You can [00:37:30] also support the work I'm doing by checking out my store Starlight and Gleam.

[00:37:34] John Mulnix: There are some really cool space themed pieces that would make a great Christmas present for the space enthusiast in your life. If you'd like to ask a question, you can also reach me at 7 2 0 7 7 2 7 9 8 8. Just leave a message and I might play it during an upcoming q and a episode that I'm gonna do after the Lunar era series wraps.

[00:37:55] John Mulnix: You can also check out my substack for more updates, looks behind the scenes, and even more [00:38:00] space history. Until next time, I'm John Mulnix and I'll catch you on the flip side.