The above image is from Dave´s website - and he had this comment:

"Well, I have news for all the sceptics and have reproduced below a little known picture from the Gemini 10 Space walk that NASA faked. The astronaut in the pictures is Michael Collins, who was later to be part of the Apollo 11 mission, and the first picture (1) is of him practising his Space walk within a high altitude airplane. When Collins finally achieved the Space walk, NASA released several pictures of the event. One of which is picture 2. If you look closely, you'll see that the picture is in fact picture 1. reversed (see picture 3) and a Space background has been added. If NASA has the bottle to release pictures such as these, why do you think they wouldn't fake the Apollo missions?"

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html

But actually the Gemini 10 claim is not Dave´s to begin with. Years back, Ralph Rene fathered the idea of the allegedly faked Gemini 10 spacewalk photo.

On September 1, 1997, the Canadian hoax believer David P. Wozney listened to a tape of the "End Of the Line phone-in radio talk show when Ralph Rene was on as a guest".

Mr. Wozney then posted his notes in the newsgroup sci.skeptic - and these are Mr. Wozney´s notes regarding Ralph Rene and Gemini 10:

"The first big tip that NASA had lied was revealed to Rene doing photo analysis on the alleged Gemini 10 spacewalk. Rene found the photos in Collins' book and the first one shows him practicing the zero gravity outside loop in the padded aircraft, simulating zero gravity in a fast downward-diving plane.

The first fellow has the look of extreme trepidation on his face. In his right hand he has a propulsion rod that he is using. It spits out nitrogen and pushes you around. He is in a lightweight spacesuit in an airplane cargo hold. There is all kinds of nylon straps floating all over the place. A few pages in the book later he is found in space walking in space on a Gemini 10 mission but he is using the propulsion rod in his left hand, he has the same horrified look on his face, and the nylon straps are all floating in the same position, but all around him is nothing but the alleged black of space.

If you practice for something with your right hand, when it comes to the nitty-gritty, you're surely not going to change hands. Rene took the first picture, and had it shrunk a tiny little bit, and had it reversed, so now he's holding the propulsion rod in his left hand. Rene had the second picture blown up a bit, and the negative fits exactly, point to point coincidence, on the other picture, and vice-versa. So the second picture was derived from the first; it was not taken in space.

Why fake a picture? The early space walks were a big deal, big public relations things. Oddly enough, Collins put it in his book just a few pages from the original picture which was larger inside the aircraft cargo hold. You would have thought Collins would have caught that, but no, Rene caught it and these are a dead match. You can look at them and they are the same picture."

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...news.sas.ab.ca

So ... the "chain of evidence" for the pictures would be something like this:

NASA - Michael Collins' book - Ralph Rene - CosmicDave .

Of course - since Ralph Rene claims that both pictures are from the Collins book - all we have to do is to check the Collins book for the above pictures. Does any of you have that book (no title is mentioned) ??



_________________
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment."

Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson in the novel "A Study in Scarlet"


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sherlock Holmes on 2002-07-02 15:43 ]</font>

Do any genuine pictures of Collins' Gemini 10 spacewalk actualy exist? If none do (or if they are of poor quality) then perhaps the training picture was adjusted in the absence of any other suitable material.

As long as NASA aren't claiming that this spacewalk picture is genuine and have given it a mission ID number, then I can't see what all the fuss is about. It reminds me of the same poor HB arguments surrounding the Apollo 14 golf picture that was 'faked' for publication in Ed Mitchell's book.

Actually, to me it looks like perhaps the second picture is just darker, overall. The "black of space" might just be due to the print being reproduced darker.

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

>So ... the "chain of evidence" for the pictures would be something like this:

NASA - Michael Collins' book - Ralph Rene - CosmicDave .

Of course - since Ralph Rene claims that both pictures are from the Collins book - all we have to do is to check the Collins book for the above pictures. Does any of you have that book (no title is mentioned) ?? <

Hi there,
my copy of Mike Collins book 'Carrying the Fire' which I presume is the one referred to, contains only one of the above three photographs, that which is numbered 1 (above). It is captioned 'The zero-G airplane - sickening!' and clearly shows it to have been taken inside an aircraft.
My edition was published in 2001 so whether earlier publications of the book contained anything else I couldn't say.
As this was the flight that he famously 'lost' the Hassleblad he was using during his EVA I suspect that pictures may be in short supply. Reading his account of the spacewalk his partner John Young may also have had his hands too occupied manoeuvering the spacecraft to keep station with an Agena target rocket to be taking photographs, so it may be that none actually exist for this particular event.
BTW, I believe that there is still a reward offered for the return of the camera. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]
Hope this helps
DK.

In his book, "Flying to the Moon, An Astronaut's Story", which is the children's version of "Carrying the Fire", only the first picture is in the book and it is clearly labled as "... aboard the zero-G airplane"

In "Carrying the Fire", the same picture is used and again its caption is "... zero-G airplane.

I checked the Johnson Space Center digital images collection and there are no EVA photo from Gemini 10 or EVA training photos like the one in the book.

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/html/pao/gemini.htm

or

http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/html/pao/gt10.htm

Next time I go to the library I'll try and get the first edition of "Carrying the Fire" and see what it says. My gut feeling is that this is another madeup HB story.

My edition of Carrying the Fire is also the 2001 edition.

Collins also wrote a book called Liftoff! but it's illustrated with ink drawings.

Photos are often reversed for layout reasons. There's some graphical arts rule about the subjects of photos facing the gutter rather than the edge of the page. So if it were a simple matter of a poor contrast photo reversed, I wouldn't care. The question is whether the photo was published with the intent of its being considered an actual photo of Collins' EVA.

So as it stands, nobody can confirm that this photo was ever claimed to be of the spacewalk itself. The only copies found state clearly that it's a training photo. Correct?

Well, there's another thing for Cosmic Dave to either provide documentation for or else to correct on his site.

----------------------------

I was reading the babbling garbage in the link given in the initial post http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...news.sas.ab.ca , and came across something that intrigued me. I don't remember ever hearing about this.

I checked the McWilliams book and the quote is indeed there: http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/books/aint/311.htm (near the bottom), but there's no documentation for it. So what's the truth here? Is there even any footage of the space walk? Was it faked? I did a bit of Googling and turned up nothing. Anyone know?

_________________
<font size="-1">PLEASE NOTE: Some quantum physics theories suggest that when the consumer is not directly observing this product, it may cease to exist or will exist only in a vague and undetermined state.</font>

<font size="-1">(something was going whacko with the HTML)</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2002-07-04 03:59 ]</font>

I took the second and third photo (which is reversed from the first one). Then I cropped them both to head to foot, and resized the second one down to the first one, and superimposed them.



As you can see, they don't match perfectly, which means the second one couldn't been derived from the first one.

__________________
~AstroMike

The fit is not identical, but the astronaut portion of the photo differs only by factors consistent with spatial distortion. The contours of the astronaut outline look like they could be rendered identical by simple x-y stretches, and that wouldn't be the case if they were two separate photographs taken at different times.

I think it's still credible to argue that the dark-background photo was derived from the other, but it is still very unclear who did it, how, and why. It's entirely possible that NASA, or someone closely associated with NASA, might have done it for some secondary purpose. This would be allowable use of such materials, no "suspicious" doctoring. The conspiracy theory relies on the photo being published explicitly as an actual photo taken in space.

I went to the library on Sunday and looked at a late 1970's printing of the book. No claim is made by Mike Collin's as to these photographs being from his Gemini 10 EVA. In fact it states that his is practicing in a zero-g airplane.

So to sum up, the only claim that the Gemini 10 vomit-comet photo has been doctored and passed off as a genuine orbital photo was made by Ralph Rene, who gives only a vague reference to "Collins' book". I think, given the amount of legwork that's been done by members here, that Mr. Rene has a very heavy burden of proof to substantiate his allegation.

That seems to be the pattern with all HB claims.

Vague with no proof at all.

Not really. All Rene has to do is produce a copy of the book in question, showing the statement that it is a "real" photo, as Rene claims.

That is not a "heavy burden of proof"... if his claim is correct.

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

That is not a "heavy burden of proof"... if his claim is correct.

By "heavy" I meant it was all his. You're right in that all he has to do is reveal his alleged primary source. But since we've gone to the primary sources ourselves and found nothing, Rene might find it hard to produce one which says what he says it will say. It's pretty clear that neither Collins nor his editors intended that photo to refer to anything but training in the aircraft.