A reader named "Not THAT Ross Cameron"* writes from Australia: "I saw a window-sized poster for Kylie Minogue (onetime Australian soap actress who then made her fame and fortune as a pop/dance singer) selling her latest range of fashion glasses. I had to chuckle at myself, as I didn't look at her or her glasses, but instead wondered to myself "what is the camera she’s posing with?" Can anyone on TOP slake my curiosity?"
1968
...And speaking of old, it occurred to me this morning that it's been 50 years since 1968, one of the most vivid years in recent history in the western world. Fifty years ago this month, among other things, there were riots in Paris, a little car brand called "Subaru" came to North America, and the Beatles were at Abbey Road Studios recording John Lennon's sneering "Revolution" that the left saw as a betrayal (he was right, though—revolution was in the air** but not in the cards). "The Sixties" have been neutered and romanticized ever since; it's necessary for the reigning worldview to do that with subversive realities. In real life, it was a violent, angry, distressing time. One could argue that politics in America since 1980 has been a reaction to it.
There's a curious little book from back then called Toward the Year 2018: A Dozen Eminent Leaders in Science and Technology Look 50 Years Into the Future. As with most such attempts, in that book the future was mostly only understood in terms of those days—for example, one prediction listed on the jacket is, "The United Nations holds a debate on outlawing the laser disintegrating ray." (Ray guns were big in 1968—I was 11, and up on cartoons, so I can attest to that.) On the other hand, they accurately predicted cellphones ("citizens' pocket computers" with "portable databases"), and texting and photo sharing.
Nowadays, our predictions of the future are a little more dire, and glum: There's a fad right now for "end of democracy" books. Ya hate that. Things looked pretty dire in 1968 too, though. The one I want to read is Jon Meacham's The Soul of America—anybody read that one yet?
The best book on 1968 is (appropriately enough) Mark Kurlansky's 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, but note that there's a picture book too, from TIME.
Mike
UPDATE: Later this month, on the 28th, Kylie Minogue, pictured at the top of the post, will turn 50. She was born in 1968. I didn't know that when I wrote this post.
Thanks to Ray Kinnane for this!
*I had to look up "that" Ross Cameron who our reader is not: Aussie politician. In case you're wondering.
**Okay, that was '69.
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Joe: "Fifty-six years ago yesterday, Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday to JFK, accompanied by pianist Hank Jones, at Madison Square Garden, as part of a Democratic party fundraiser. Jackie was not present."
Mike replies: Hank is one of my two favorite musicians, and I never knew he was the pianist that night!
Bob Johnston [same ilk, no relation —Ed.]: "You were looking at the camera and not Kylie Minogue? I think you might be getting old Mike! It's a Russian Zenit E. They were probably the cheapest SLR you could buy at the time and so many young European photographers started with one. The lens is the M42 screw-fit 58mm ƒ/2 Helios which was reckoned to be quite good. The camera was a heavy lump of metal that you could probably use to knock nails in, but the build quality was somewhat lacking. If I recall correctly the lens diaphragm was not automatic. As you can see there was a selenium light meter but it wasn't coupled in any way. There was a match needle arrangement in a window on the top plate. Kylie has the rewind knob pulled out."
Michael Matthews: "My wife and I paused on the sidewalk to watch Malcolm Bricklin unload his first truckfull of Subaru 360s into a former retail storefront next to Van Sciver Furniture in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Our appraisal of the cartoonish little cars—as ton after ton of befinned Detroit iron soared by on Philadelphia's City Line Avenue—was 'not a chance.' Hmmm."
David Boyce: "Mark Kurlansky is a very good and engaging writer. I have read a few of his books. Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World and Salt: A World History are very interesting and well worth a read, as is The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation. Paper: Paging Through History is on my list of want-to-reads."
Dave Van de Mark: 1968 is certainly a special year for me. As a young photographer and activist, I attempted to portray the awesome beauty of the redwoods—not only as incredibly special trees but, more importantly, as a grand forest environment—as part of efforts to establish a Redwood National Park. But probably a more urgent task was to portray what was happening to the last large remaining block of virgin redwoods, namely the brutal clearcutting operations and their devastating impacts on the environment.
"Shooting mostly in B&W with a Hasselblad 500C camera, these efforts began in 1965. My photos appeared in major newspapers across the country and in conservationist publications. Fortunately, the Redwood National Park was established in 1968 and its 50th birthday is being celebrated this year. Unfortunately, Congress did not create a park with great ecological integrity, and I continued to photograph destructive logging practices occurring right up to the original boundary. These efforts, along with so many others, finally led to the park's expansion 10 years later.
"I donated about 5,000 images to the Park Service in 1988. It is not a common occurrence that a significant photographic history regarding establishment of a park is donated by a living photographer. Now 75, I am in discussions with Redwood National Park to take some pictures of what it looks like now, 50 years later. I certainly hope this will be successful!"
Made in CCCP /Soviet Rusia/ Zenit E
Posted by: Pawel Bielawski | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:31 PM
It's a Russian Zenith E, of course, everyone's first SLR in the 1970s.
My first SLR was a second hand Zenith E (also called a Zenit in some markets and sometimes sold by the Dixons chain in the UK under the Prinzflex 500 brand - actually just a plastic nameplate glued over the engraved Zenith brand).
I still have a Zenith B in the attic which appears to be identical except it lacks the uncoupled silicon lightmeter you can see in the photo.
Posted by: Dave Millier | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:36 PM
A Russian made Zenith E, that version had the meter above the lens so the reading had to be adjusted for filters etc. 42mm screw thread, very solidly built. I saw an art student (who was probably younger than the camera) using one in Cornwall a couple of years ago.
Posted by: Martin | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:39 PM
Zenit E
http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?-1057156339
Posted by: Malcolm Myers | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:42 PM
Zenith E with a selenium exposure meter! This Russian camera was available in the beginning of seventies and was a first for many of us of that time. Screw mount 42mm wit focal cloth shutter mechanism. Good memories! (We use to call it the "Frankenstein") - Daniel M
Posted by: Daniel M | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:44 PM
That's Zenit EM with Helios 44-2 lens. Russian M42 camera and Russian copy of per-war Carl Zeiss Biotar 2/58mm M42 lens. 44-2 version is pre-set lens, later 44M versions had aperture pin.
Posted by: Neven Falica | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:48 PM
Zenit-E
Posted by: s.wolters | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:48 PM
It looks like my dad's old camera, a Zenit. Maybe a Zenit E?
Posted by: Mike Arnold | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:52 PM
A Zenit, most likely?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(camera)#/media/File:Zenit-E_Camera_with_Industar_50mm_lens.jpg
Posted by: Vasily | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:52 PM
It's a Zenit-ET. Nothing can compare to the elegance and refinement of a Russian-designed SLR.
Posted by: Gordon Lewis | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:52 PM
The camera is a Russian Zenit E.
Posted by: Fulvio Senore | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:55 PM
Looks a lot like Zenit-E
Posted by: Timo Virojärvi | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 04:55 PM
Yes, I think it’s fair to see yuppies as a reaction to the sixties. (Which happened largely in the seventies.)
In my highschool, 1978-1980, the classes who were before us were clear hippies, backpacks and leftists, and the year who came after us were clear yuppies, briefcases and rightists. We were right in the middle, nobodies.
It says something about the dark side of the sixties that the Beatles singing “when we talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out” was seen as a bad thing by many! How angry can you be?
Posted by: Eolake | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:08 PM
(I was in highschool in Denmark. Things are very international.)
Posted by: Eolake | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:10 PM
Dont know the exact version, but it's a Zenit E, (googled slr with selenium meter).
Posted by: Svein | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:14 PM
The camera is the Russian Zenith E, my first SLR. It was a step up from the basic Zenith B, featuring a built-in uncoupled selenium cell exposure meter (UK market names)
Posted by: Ken Thomson | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:15 PM
Looks like a Soviet Zenit E to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(camera)#Zenit-E_and_its_successors
Posted by: robert e | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:17 PM
More on the Zenit E. The first were made in 1967, so it's possible that the camera in the photo was made in 1968 (cue Twilight Zone theme). To further the irony, the camera's rewind knob is up.
(Or did you know all this when you wrote the post?)
Posted by: robert e | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:24 PM
I'm pretty sure its a Zenit E - my first SLR.
Posted by: Nigli | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:27 PM
Looks like a Zenit E to me.
Posted by: Edward Smyth | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:27 PM
Camera is a Zenit-E (Russian). You can see the top of the letter E just above her finger.
Posted by: Richard Parkin | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:30 PM
Zenit-E. I remember the camera very well. One of my fellow students at Art School had one. Even as rather poor in the Seventies we were not allowed to use any of the ‘Eastern European crude wrought ironwork’ brands like Zenit or Praktica. Probably even now they are still better than the immensely popular Lomo and Holga hipster cameras of today.
In the hands of Kylie even a Canon EOS-1D X Mark II looks sexy.
Posted by: s.wolters | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:36 PM
Enough with the prattle…
Five minutes scanning in Google Images led me to conclude that the camera in question may be the Russian Zenit E. From 1965 to 1982 they produced over eight million of them.
Never seen one myself.
T.
Posted by: himself | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:38 PM
It's a Russian Zenith E, with the 58mm f/2 lens. I had a Zenith B that didn't have the external meter but with the same lens, and a Zenith ES that had another shutter release sticking out of the bottom plate, for use with the Photosniper outfit it came with.
Posted by: Roger Bradbury | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:38 PM
Russian Zenit-E??
Posted by: Yon Bezunartea | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:40 PM
It's a Zenit E, a Russian made stalwart of the 1968 era proletariat.
Posted by: Andrew Beard | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:43 PM
Looks like a Zenit E.
Posted by: Sami | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:46 PM
Fifty years ago yesterday, Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday to JFK, accompanied by pianist Hank Jones, at Madison Square Garden, as part of a Democratic party fundraiser. Jackie was not present.
Posted by: Joe | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:46 PM
The camera is a Zenit-E , circa 1975 or so.
Posted by: hugh crawford | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:51 PM
The selenium metering on the front was a good clue, so a quick google image search for "slr selenium metering" gave the answer. It's a Zenit E, chrome version. I already suspected it was russian just by looking at it, it just screams old russian SLR.
Posted by: Ricardo Silva Cordeiro | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 05:51 PM
Oh, for Pete’s sake: it’s a Soviet Zenit-E, with for some reason the rewind knob fully extended. Since this might have been the most-produced 35 mm SLR, and its standard 2/58 Helios 44 lens (a Zeiss Biotar) the most-produced standard lens, photographers who don’t recognise it need to go on a course about the history of the SLR.
Alun
Posted by: Alun J. Carr | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 06:01 PM
Pretty sure it's a Zenit, but I don't know what model. The Russians did make distinctive looking cameras.
Posted by: Doug Chadwick | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 06:05 PM
A Zenit-E - apparently also offered under several other brands: http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Zenit-E . Note also what appears to be a raised re-wind knob (?).
(Discovered with little working knowledge of cameras of that era, and ~50s of web searching. My Google-fu must be strong today.)
Posted by: Dan F | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 06:10 PM
I believe it is a Zenit -E. A Russian camera.
Posted by: Jeff | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 06:10 PM
Got one of them in Germany, because I couldn't afford a good camera. Worked OK and at the time it was fairly functional. When I got back to the US I traded for something that is still in the family today. Got a Fuji, which our oldest son still has. Nothing like a film SLR and a 50MM.
Posted by: Steve Weeks | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 06:47 PM
This is of course very old, russian Zenith E. It's THE cheapest SLR you can find in former eastern block. There are plenty of them.
Unfortunately ;)
Posted by: pyzz | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 07:04 PM
My twin brother had a Zenit-E back in about 1979. In a frequent display of friendly fraternal competition I beat him into second place with a Zenit TTL that dispensed with that horrid external meter.
After saving furiously for quite some time I moved from the TTL to the then new, fancy, tiny and featherweight Pentax ME Super. My first 'cool' camera and the camera that slowly set me off into serious photography.
Posted by: James Symington | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 07:14 PM
After reading about 100 variations on "Zenit E" above, the one post that caused coffee spew was from Gordon Lewis. Elegant and refined, compared to blast-furnace slag that happened to be shaped like a camera. They were built like a cheap alarm clock: able to work badly basically indefinitely.
I never owned a Zenit, but I'm familiar with the breed: Two Feds, a Kiev 44, three Kiev 60's, and a Kiev 88CM. Junque of the first class. Interesting lenses, some of which I now use on my 645z. Fortunately, in the early 70's, the affordable SLR of choice where I lived was a Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL. (RIP, wherever you are.)
Posted by: Rick Denney | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 07:22 PM
Aha! So that's the camera that the funky Russian lens I bought 6 years ago mated with. When I first transitioned to M43, I became enamored of adapting all kinds of old lenses. Two years later I sold off most of them.
Posted by: MikeR | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 07:31 PM
Nothing gets by the commentariat! I had to make pit stops at Mamiaflex, Mamiya Autolux, Praktisix, Ektaflex, Pentacon, and Exacta. And still . . .didn't hit the Zenit or any of its clones.
My dad had an old East German Praktina, a better camera than the Zenit from a build quality perspective. . . no light meter and no lens cap (for that matter). Our entire childhoods were recorded with that thing. No matter what he did to the film, Modernage could pull a print from it. Amazing.
Posted by: Benjamin Marks | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 07:50 PM
Hi Mike
Did you know that Kylie Minogue was born in 1968? Her 50th birthday this year. 28th of this month, in fact.
Ray Kinnane
Posted by: Ray Kinnane | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 09:10 PM
I just finished listening to Meacham's "The Soul of America" in audiobook form. Recommended. The parallels between past and present are startling, especially the arc of McCarthyism.
Posted by: Bill Tyler | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 09:16 PM
The Helios has perhaps the weirdest bokeh of any 50mm lens known to man. It is at the same time sublime and crazy. I haven’t used mine in years, but I don’t dare sell it.
Posted by: Earl Dunbar | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 09:20 PM
Just for the record, fifty years ago yesterday neither JFK nor Marilyn Monroe was alive.
[Of course...thanks for the nudge. Fixed now. --Mike]
Posted by: Peter Conway | Sunday, 20 May 2018 at 10:18 PM
Every single month of the Sixties, after about 1965, and certainly 1968, is worth looking back on. Daily newspapers used to have a "50 years ago today" or a "100 years ago today" column. I wonder what happened to those? They really used to give one a sense of historic proportion, and also educate.
The Sixties were a rich time, politically and culturally speaking, and much about the world we live in was forged then. Yes, I know, baby boomers go on endlessly, irritatingly, about it, but it is also true.
While the Mark Kurlansky book, 1968, on that seminal year is superb and broad ranging, I can also recommend a book with a narrower focus that looks at the phenomenon of revolutions exploding in 1968, in seemingly disparate countries and societies, worldwide.
It is Year of the Heroic Guerrilla
World Revolution and Counterrevolution in 1968 by Robert Daniels and is available from Amazon.
https://amzn.to/2IGaIqM
Posted by: Mani Sitaraman | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 12:24 AM
Hi Mike
As you started in on books, I would like to recommend a book about the past present and future, it’s “FACTFULNESS” by a Hans Rosling and it’s brilliant, and should cheer you all up.
All the best
Mike
Posted by: Michael Walsh | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 03:13 AM
My thanks to Mike for the little indulgence, and to the TOP brains trust for an informative and entertaining read on my commute home.
For the record, that thing (camera) is possibly as old as me - born in 70s. I’m a digital native to photography, although I have Nikkor AI/S lenses that I enjoy using, and an FM2N in for CLA. My dad lent me a voigtlander vito a few times when I was young (from his aunt) with instructions of ‘turn here to focus’, and ‘turn here until the needle is upright’. In short, I was clueless about film photography, and he wasn’t far behind.
Posted by: Not THAT Ross Cameron | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 03:36 AM
Specsavers is a wide-spread, UK High Street retail optician. They operate in Oz, too. For many years, they have run a series tv ads, featuring humorous situations where visual acuity was lacking, under the strapline, “Should’ve Gone To Specsavers”.
Although not used in that context, in this Australian poster, the adoption of a Zenith E (loved by many but, sadly, no “looker”), with its rewind knob extended, certainly implies Kylie needed those glasses.
Posted by: XK50 | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 04:12 AM
I can't believe that I wrote that Marilyn's singing at MSG was fifty years ago -- the reason I know the date off the top of my head is that it's my brother-in-law's birthday, and he's 56!
Posted by: Joe | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 07:14 AM
Fun fact; If you used a reversing ring for macro, a 35mm film canister with the bottom cut off push-fit onto the rear element as a lens hood.
Posted by: Another phil | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 08:06 AM
I was recently given a Zenith for my ?0th birthday. It works fine. Having read the comments above, I put it on a scale and compared it to my A7r2 with the 55mm 1.8 lens. Ready to shoot (the A7r2 with card and battery and the Zenit with film), the A7r2 was slightly heavier than the Zenith, but the Zenith feels heavier.
With lenses attached, the Zenith is about an inch (25mm) shorter than the A7. The difference looks less than it is when measured..
I have e-mailed Mike a photo of my Zenith.
Posted by: christet | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 08:53 AM
A couple of weeks ago, the Times published an article on May '68 in Paris, accompanied by some fantastic photographs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/world/europe/france-may-1968-revolution.html
Posted by: Ben | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 09:27 AM
See also: Ryan H. Walsh’s “Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968,” discussed in the article "17 Refreshing Books to Read This Summer" in the Sunday New York Times.
Posted by: Steve Rosenblum | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 11:55 AM
I never had a Zenit, but I did get a Zorki 4 (cyrillic lettering and all) with a Jupiter 50/2 lens as a backup to my Leica IIIf. It had a better viewfinder than the Leica, but other than that ...
The Zorki is still working, and being used today, 45 years later, by a college classmate who teaches high school. Quirky machine, but it works.
Posted by: steveH | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 12:22 PM
My first SLR. Back in the 70s you bought either the Zenith or the Yashica as your first step. As I recall, the shutter speed dial with its serrated edge span round at the speed of the released shutter. The meter was accurate enough to shoot Kodachrome with no problem. The biggest inconvenience was the need to rotate a ring at the end of the lens to stop the lens down to the preselected aperture after focusssing. I got round that by shooting wide open a great deal, where the 58mm lens was not at its best. Mind you, I was printing with an as used by Moscow Central Zenith enlarger which came to pieces and could be packed away inside its baseboard which resembled a briefcase.
Posted by: Tom | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 02:52 PM
I never saw a Subaru 360, but I bought a sporty 4-door 1972 model FWD and a 1973 small 4WD station wagon while living in the woods of Northern Westchester County, NY, and got about ten good years of use out of them. They were both good looking cars. Brand evolution and the passing years turned Subaru into the frumpy models that you see today. I think even Consumer Reports approved by then.
Posted by: scott kirkpatrick | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 02:59 PM
Zenit E. Like all Zenits, well, like all Russian cameras, it's a piece of barely functioning junk. That they should choose it for this ad has got to be some kind of concealed irony.
Posted by: marcin wuu | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 04:17 PM
And guess what article was in a recent IEEE Spectrum? Even if it is behind a paywall for the rest of you, the link tells all:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/military/fiber-lasers-mean-ray-guns-are-coming
Posted by: KeithB | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 04:59 PM
"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .
And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
- Hunter S. Thompson, on the 1960's
Posted by: Mark Roberts | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 05:41 PM
It's probable that the ad's designer chose the Zenit as a prop because it says 'camera' without being identifiable. Except to (so far) 50-odd camera fans. (I didn't recognize it myself.)
Posted by: Mark Sampson | Monday, 21 May 2018 at 11:49 PM
Congratulations, Dave Van de Mark- well done!
Posted by: Stan B. | Tuesday, 22 May 2018 at 12:07 AM
Camera? What camera?
Posted by: DaleD | Tuesday, 22 May 2018 at 12:58 AM
Re the Zenit, one review I remember said "built like a tank, and handles like one!"
Posted by: M Graf | Tuesday, 22 May 2018 at 02:23 AM
I saw one in a charity shop at the weekend, going for £15.00
Posted by: Phil Martin | Tuesday, 22 May 2018 at 02:54 AM
I am not trying to stir another controversy here, but it is hard not to see similarities between these two adverts (film rewind lever/knob UP on both cameras … anyone?). Nikon used quite successfully their version to promote 100-th anniversary of their business (2018) … subversively selling such an eye candy to a certain demographics of their loyal customers using two clearly identifiable icons.
In the case of Kylie Minogue campaign poster their choice of non-descriptive Russian camera seems like a clever way out of a possible litigation brought to them by any such a camera company … and it fails quite miserably at that … what is a sex appeal of a camera that permanently scratches every single roll of film put through it? that it was a crude copy of somebody else work? …
Posted by: p@l | Tuesday, 22 May 2018 at 09:35 PM
That picture of Marilyn Monroe with a Nikon was taken by Bert Stern in 1962, and googling reveals numerous shots from that sitting.
http://tinyurl.com/y8haewzx
Apparently, Stern shot more more than 2,500 frames in that sitting; Marilyn Monroe just grabbed his Nikon F and posed for numerous pictures with it.
Here is a GIF of some of those shots (Warning: Rapidly flashing images)
http://tinyurl.com/y8mqg75f
And a link about the session
https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2018/03/camera-captured-marilyn-monroe/
Posted by: Mani Sitaraman | Wednesday, 23 May 2018 at 03:56 AM
Funny but I measure the 60's in NASA milestones. Born in 49 I was fascinated by the idea of travel beyond the atmosphere. Followed Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and still have an interest in that era. But now I'm a little more realistic as to any future in space. Until and if there is a real breakthrough in propulsion, then burning massive amounts of reaction mass to escape the earth's gravity well and the now better known dangers of micro gravity and radiation out of the warm embrace of our magnetic field place firm limits on what can be accomplished at this time for maned missions.
Posted by: john robison | Wednesday, 23 May 2018 at 01:59 PM
1968 was the year I started doing my own B&W darkroom work, and the year I started learning to program computers (my profession since the next year, 1969), so it was an important year for me!
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Wednesday, 23 May 2018 at 09:27 PM