Goldstone Polaroid
Sunday 20th July 1969 PDT / Monday 21st July 1969 AEST
Ground Elapsed Time 110:41:48

Adapted from Colin Mackellar's Honeysuckle Creek site. Used with permission.


This scan of a Polaroid taken at Goldstone is the only one we’ve seen from that site.

Like the Honeysuckle Polaroids, the scan lines can be slearly seen.

(Incidentally, it also demonstrates that the quality of Goldstone’s TV seems to have improved after problems early in the broadcast. The international audience did not see any video from Goldstone after the switch to Parkes was made by Houston TV.)

Bill Wood, who was lead USB engineer at Goldstone, writes,

“During Apollo 11, Goddard Space Flight Center had a public relations person assigned to us. He was given a small office trailer to use just outside the operations building. It had a Fairchild Slow Scan monitor rack that was equipped with a Polaroid camera that used a 4 by 5 inch sheet film back.

He made 100s of pictures during the EVA handing them out the few press representatives that managed the long trip into the desert to Goldstone. I talked the guy out of this one as a keep-sake. I suspect that Honeysuckle had a similar arrangement. Unfortunately that is the only one from Goldstone that I know of.”

With thanks to Bill for this image.

GDS Polaroid

Click on the image for a larger version.