Apollo 10 and color TV

Apollo 10 is famous for—absolutely nothing. After the Apollo 11 moon landing, the previous mission was all but forgotten. That mission was 40 years ago this month.

Snoopy in space: Live and in color!

Live TV from space

Apollo 10 was an amazing and hazardous flight. And one of it’s firsts was the first live color TV broadcast from space.

Back in 1967, Wally Schirra’s overworked Apollo 7 crew performed the first live TV broadcast—in black and white—during it’s earth orbital mission.

The live broadcast from lunar orbit by the Apollo 8 crew was in black and white. Of course, that made little difference because the moon itself is basically grey.

But Apollo 10 would bring color to space. And, even though the moon—which Apollo 10 got very close to—is grey—the astronauts and their spacecraft were not. To test the color on the TV camera, Apollo 10 ponted it at hand painted images of Snoopy and Charlie Brown. The paintings had bright backgrounds. (I tried to buy the Snoopy some years back at an auction—and failed.)

Back in 1969, I had a black and white TV, as did most Americans. Relatively few saw the live broadcast in color. But it made history.

Finally—live and in color from the lunar surface

Even the first moon landing used only black and white TV. Apollo 12 planned to broadcast live in color from the moon. But that failed when Alan Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the sun.

As everyone remembers, Apollo 13 didn’t make it to the lunar surface. So, Apollo 14 finally broadcast the first live color TV from the moon.

And that, in brief, is the early history of live TV from space