History of lens development at ZEISS for NASA space and moon landing missions

Abstract

The iconic photos of NASA's first space missions and Moon landings from the 1960s onwards were captured with ZEISS camera lenses mounted on Hasselblad cameras. They adorned the covers of many newspapers and magazines and appeared in color for the first time ever, as special issues. Meanwhile, NASA's scientists were evaluating the scientific images: the photogrammetric images taken while in orbit were combined to form a detailed lunar map, the panorama pans on the lunar surface were turned into a topographic map of the landing area, and the pictures with broadband achromatized UV lenses gave insights into the overall soil conditions on the Moon and the Earth. The talk will provide an overview of all the camera lenses developed by ZEISS for NASA. It will look at their technical specifications, describe the development work done for these lenses, and delve into the history of the partnership between NASA, Hasselblad, and ZEISS. Just like space travel, the launch of mainframe computers at that time also spurred on optical design. Other ZEISS products for photography, cinematography, aerial photogrammetry, and optical lithography also benefited from these developments.