Apollo 4 staging shot showing the first stage S-IC falling away, followed by the inter-stage connecting ring. The view of the Earth is from a height of 200, 000 ft, but the curvature is exaggerated by the wide angle nature of the lens. The camera (an apparently late addition to the rocket stack) was housed in the bottom of the second stage (S-II). Two cameras were mounted on either side of the S-II stage looking past its J-2 engines toward the departing S-IC. They filmed at 4x high speed giving an estimated quarter speed slow-motion view of events. Capsules housing the film were jettisoned soon after this separation event and fell back to Earth to be recovered after splashdown in the Ocean. Date recorded: 1967-12-09 to 1967-12-09 |