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There's plenty of people who said it would have been impossible for the astronauts in the Apollo 11 to film or take pictures in the moon due to the high radiation there's in the moon because of the lack of an earth atmosphere.

They compare it with some recordings of the Chernobyl accident which show some fast lights on the films. They say those are the radioactive particles hitting the film of the camera which doesn't seem to happen in the moon films.

Others say it would have been impossible to take any film outside the magnetic field of the earth as these would have been destroyed by the amount of particles in the outside.

Antzi
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Alvaro
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    Not saying thats their way but I can imagine if you expect it to be problem, enclosing camera in lead container and using glass with lead in it is a possible way to shield the camera and film. – jkavalik Jul 19 '16 at 10:19
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    I'd note that many of those photos in Chernobyl were taken in areas safe to occupy for only minutes at a time before receiving dangerous doses. Space and the Moon, clearly, are occupiable for longer than minutes at a time. – ceejayoz Jul 19 '16 at 18:23
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    Think about it for a second: if the radiation was that high, shouldn't you be worrying about the astronauts rather than the photographic film? – pjc50 Jul 19 '16 at 20:49

4 Answers4

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The radiation dosage for a year on the moon is between 110 mSv and 380 mSv. On Earth, that dosage is 2.4 mSv, or higher, depending on where you are exactly. Bottom line, the few days in Lunar orbit would have aged the film due to radiation between 50-150 days/ day in orbit maximum, thus it would be the equivalent of film that was aged a few years at most. The environment at the Moon is more likely to have high energy effects, which I'll get to later. Chernobyl produced about 80 mSv/ second after the incident, considerably more than on the surface of the Moon! To this day, the dosage at the center of Chernobyl is around 10 mSv/ second.

The Apollo missions were launched near the Solar Minimum, which would tend to have more higher cosmic ray strikes, and higher overall radiation, but fewer solar storms.

Furthermore, there actually ARE signs of radiation in some of the images, if you look carefully. At the very least, it's dust in on the film, the two can be difficult to tell apart. For instance, look in high resolution at the dark portion of this image. The lines that run through it are quite possibly signs of radiation strikes, or even (gasp!) stars.

enter image description here

PearsonArtPhoto
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    Just to be clear, your first paragraph is saying that the radiation exposure on the Moon would create the same effects in the film used as leaving the same film on a shelf for six months on Earth and then using that film? And of course film is (or perhaps was, I should say) left on shelves for far longer in many cases and still used. – Todd Wilcox Jul 19 '16 at 12:57
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    I should clarify that a bit. The general exposure level would be the same, however, there would be a few high energy effects. – PearsonArtPhoto Jul 19 '16 at 12:58
  • They're unlikely to be stars though, right? The tonal range of film is actually fairly low for a given exposure, and on the light side of the moon the sun's overwhelming brightness makes the stars invisible, as I understand it. – SevenSidedDie Jul 19 '16 at 14:10
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    In comparison to the 100-300 mSv/year, the radioactivity in the Chernobyl reactor core was about 100 mSv/second. To put things in perspective. – MSalters Jul 19 '16 at 22:35
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    The 2.4 mSv is a bit low, at least for the US. The total from natural and artificial sources is about 6.2 mSv/year (e.g., http://www.nrc.gov/images/about-nrc/radiation/factoid2-lrg.gif). The film wasn't left out on a shelf. It was stowed in thick canisters until needed. – David Hammen Jul 19 '16 at 23:13
  • These lines may as well result from dust specks, minor scratches, etc. Though radiation is also a possible cause. – IMil Jul 19 '16 at 23:31
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    Possibly even stars. I understand there are some experts who say there are signs of cosmic rays strikes in Apollo film, but this was the best I could find. – PearsonArtPhoto Jul 20 '16 at 01:23
  • @ATL_DEV We had spy satellites that worked for years using film, I've never heard anyone doubt those. Those are solvable problems, especially only for a few days. – PearsonArtPhoto Jan 29 '23 at 15:14
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Radiation can affect film - but bear in mind the radiation around Chernobyl was, truly, extremely high. The radiation in our region of space is not as extreme.

Also bear in mind that the earlier Lunar Orbiter probes used film cameras, the pictures were developed and scanned automatically (by machinery on board) and the results transmitted to Earth. The results were pretty good!

enter image description here

Very high resolution version at this link.

Andy
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NASA studied the effects of radiation on film. Bright spots are just one of the possible results. Other effects include an increase in the amount of noise, and a decrease in contrast and color response. These effects are not easily detectable to the untrained eye and without access to the original material.

In this study, NASA also experimented with shielding. The shield in use provided little to no benefit.

Radiation levels during the Moon missions were far lower than in Chernobyl. Total mission dose was on the order of 1 rem (0.01 Sv).

gerrit
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Hobbes
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  • That 1 rem figure is for the very short flight mostly around (rather than through) the Van Allen Belts. Total mission dose was almost certainly higher (and almost equally certainly, private medical information). – David Hammen Jul 19 '16 at 23:40
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NASA used special, temperature-resistant, radiation-proof film for their photos.

That kind of film was not readily available in the Soviet Union - "not readily available" meaning the only rolls of the film they had were ones recovered from American spy balloons. These were used to take photos of the far side of the Moon by the Luna 3 probe.

A more primary account of the Soviets' use of American film is this translation of a St. Petersburg newspaper article.

Camille Goudeseune
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SF.
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    Do you have a reference for NASA using radiation hardened film? This page mentions special Kodak emulsions, but nothing about radiation hardening. – Johnny Jul 20 '16 at 00:04
  • @Johnny: Sorry, just one more article on Luna 3. OTOH it would be weird if they wouldn't use it, considering it was available. – SF. Jul 20 '16 at 01:10
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    Radiation proof film... that would be like saying light proof film. – TheLegendaryCopyCoder Jul 21 '16 at 12:49
  • @TheLegendaryCopyCoder: More like a with photo-pigment sensitive to 400-700nm frequencies. How happens your color film, when taking picture of a red cloth doesn't come out grey? All the light reflected from the object reaches the substance responsible for the blue color just the same as the one responsible for red. So how comes only the red is affected? In this case the substance is sensitive to frequencies from the visible range, insensitive to infrared and up, and ultraviolet and down. – SF. Jul 21 '16 at 15:00
  • (BTW, normal B&W films were insensitive to red and up; that's why red bulbs in the darkrooms.) – SF. Jul 21 '16 at 15:02
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    B&W films were mostly panchromatic, sensitive to the whole visible spectrum, it was just photographic printing paper that was insensitive to red light. – Mike H Jul 22 '16 at 04:25
  • @MikeH: How comes then red objects would come up as black in old B&W movies? – SF. Jul 22 '16 at 06:12
  • "How comes then red objects would come up as black in old B&W movie" I didn't know they did. Orthochromatic films were made but the great majority or B&W movie films used were panchromatic, from about 1920 onwards. – Mike H Jul 24 '16 at 10:06
  • @MikeH: I remember distinctly from some "movie about movies" about actors applying excessive amount of powder to their face, and explaining the necessity as "The lighting is hot, and if your face gets flushed, it comes up as horrible dark stains, because red comes up as black." – SF. Jul 24 '16 at 20:42
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    @SF Perhaps you would like to check the Wikipedia Film Stock entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_stock - It claims Orthochromatic films were used up until the mid 1920's, but after that panchromatic films were dominant. Kodak stopped producing orthochromatic film stock in 1930. So I guess the films to which you refer pre-date 1930? – Mike H Jul 25 '16 at 06:10
  • @MikeH: Probably so. As I said, my reference is a sentence or two in a very old documentary movie. Nevertheless - orthochromatic is an option; a film insensitive to frequencies outside specific range is perfectly viable and there's no specific reason why the excluded frequencies can't be gamma/X, – SF. Jul 25 '16 at 13:23
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    @SF unfortunately the silver halids in the film are sensitive to gamma and x-ray by itself. In a panchromatic or orthochromatic film special chemicals are added to acheive sensitivity for green and red light. But untreated silver halide is sensitive to blue light and gamma/X. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchromatic_film – Uwe Aug 25 '17 at 14:41
  • @Uwe: Are you sure the radiation-hardened film used in the high-altitude spy balloons was based on silver halids and not something else? One could think if it was something known and common, Soviets could have reverse-engineered it to make their own, instead of depending on the extremely limited supply from captured balloons. – SF. Aug 25 '17 at 17:28
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    @SF : it this radiation-hardened film existed and was so unknown and uncommon, how did the soviets know how to develop it? A developer for silver halide film would not work and also the fixer to remove the unused silver halide. – Uwe Aug 25 '17 at 19:21
  • @Uwe: I don't know. Look around the info on Luna2. – SF. Aug 25 '17 at 20:40
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    I'd like to see a clear example of what "radiation hardened film" is and explanation of the science of how it could be substantially less sensitive to the types of radiation on the moon without being similarly less sensitive to visible light. Something more legit than a website called damninteresting. My gut feeling is that there is no such thing and it's a phony or "fringe" term for film used to take selfies with "the aliens living in area 51"; in other words, doesn't really exist. – uhoh Aug 26 '17 at 05:16
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    @uhoh: I have located some better-sourced articles on the events around Luna 3 and that film. src1 src2 – SF. Jul 09 '18 at 09:44
  • @SF. after viewing the first link I've just asked What did Luna 3's illuminator illuminate and why did it need a cover? and also How did Luna 3's pivoting antennas and ribbon antennas work? – uhoh Sep 20 '19 at 03:17