SHOOTING THE MOONWALKS: A model of the color television camera first used on Apollo 15 on July 31, 1971 signed by the Apollo 15 astronauts, is one of the artifacts on display in a pop-up exhibit at The Sarnoff Collection at The College of New Jersey from October 24 to November 4.  Filmmaker Sam Russell, former RCA and NASA project engineer, will kick off the exhibit next Wednesday with a talk on “Shooting the Moonwalks.” (Photo courtesy of The Sarnoff Collection)

By Donald Gilpin

Filmmaker Sam Russell, former RCA and NASA project engineer who oversaw the design and operation of the remotely controlled TV camera for the last three Apollo lunar explorations, will kick off the ”RCA Astro: Space to Screen” exhibit next week with a talk on “Shooting the Apollo Moonwalks” at The Sarnoff Collection at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ).

Speaking at 6 p.m., October 24 at TCNJ’s Roscoe West Hall, where the pop-up exhibit will run from October 24 to November 4, Russell will recount some of his experiences in working on the Apollo missions, RCA’s contribution to the manned space program, and the history and development of the camera and communication systems he helped to build.

The exhibit will feature a replica of the Apollo 15 camera, signed by all the astronauts who went onto the moon’s surface, a TV receiver, picture tubes, and other artifacts that relate to RCA’s Astro-Electronics Division and their work to bring views of space to American television sets.

“It was wonderful to be a part of that whole enterprise,” said Russell in recalling his work on the Apollo missions. “The big project of interest was the making of the remotely controlled color camera for Apollo 15, 16, and 17, the last three Apollo missions.  It was a TV broadcast station placed on the front of the roving vehicle.”

He continued, “I was the project engineer for the camera.  We got a contract in 1970 to design and make the camera in one year, from prototype to flight-ready camera.  It had to be ready for Apollo 15 in July 1971.  It was quite a success.  It enabled us to see what the astronauts were doing, and they could transmit the TV back to Houston and from there distribute to the networks.  It brought TV images into living rooms around the world.”

From July 1971 to December 1972 Apollo launched three successful missions, and Russell was in charge of making sure the TV camera functioned properly.  “It was my job to see that the camera met the requirements, working with the NASA people at mission control to see that the camera was set up on the launch vehicle and that it tied in with everything else.”

Russell noted that the quality of the picture was good for Apollo 15, but the pictures sent back to Houston got better and better with Apollo 16 and 17.  “The camera got a lot of attention,” he said.  “It was the eyes through which everybody could see what was going on.  It was an exciting time.  It was very work-intensive and exciting all the time.”

After almost ten years at RCA, Russell left in 1975 to begin a new career.  The Apollo program had ended, and “because of cutbacks, space became less interesting,” he noted.  “I had had an early interest in movies.”

For the last 43 years he has worked in all aspects of filmmaking and video production, starting his own company in 1995 and producing dozens of works, mostly documentaries for film and TV, including most recently Papertown (2017), By Blood (2015), and the TV series documentary Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012-2017). 

The Sarnoff Collection is a history and technology museum, which started as the museum at RCA in the 1960s. RCA established their Astro Electronics Division in 1958, after the launching of Sputnik in the same year as the creation of NASA.  The Sarnoff Collection now comprises more than 6,000 artifacts, about two dozen of which will be on display in the “Space to Screen” pop-up exhibit. 

Sarnoff curator Florencia Pierri will lead a tour of the exhibit on Sunday, November 4 at 1:30 p.m.