To the Moon

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Fifty years ago, an invention by a man in Horseheads, New York, helped us see our world in a new way. That summer on the evening of July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon’s surface. The world watched as the event was broadcast live using special camera technology developed at Westinghouse Corporation out of Horseheads.

Image of Westinghouse workers from our collection, n.d.

Dr. Gerhard W. Goetze (1930-2007) led the team of scientists as Operations Manager. He had discovered the Secondary Electron Conduction (SEC) effect which captured and amplified individual particles of light, and now his team of scientists adapted the SEC tube to fit NASA’s needs. Under his leadership, they developed the camera technology that allowed NASA to capture images in extreme light and dark conditions and broadcast them back to Earth.

The SEC technology had a variety of applications. It became an important part of night vision sensors, security cameras, and in electron-microscope-based biological tissue studies. It was found critical in work inspecting integrated circuits and helpful in ground-based astronomy work. As for the moon landing, “There would be no other way to get yesterday’s pictures of the moon without this tube” Dr. Goetze was quoted as saying in a Star-Gazette newspaper article published the day after the moon landing.

Gerhard W. Goetze, PhD, (photo source Wikipedia)

Dr. Goetze went on to be awarded a special patent for his work, and the Westinghouse team, along with NASA engineers, won an Emmy for their Apollo broadcasts.

Goetze’s graduate work in atomic physics had first caught the eye of the American government back in the mid-1950s. In 1959, the US Department of the Army sponsored him and he moved from Germany with his young family. He was just twenty-nine years old. His early work at Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse Research and Development laboratories focused on further developing SEC’s application for night vision, a technology supported by the Department of Defense. This went on to be used for police anti-crime measures, and in fighting the war in North Vietnam. By 1964, he had relocated to the Westinghouse Corporation’s Cathode Ray Tube facility in Horseheads and settled his family in Elmira. Under his leadership, the department grew from six members to more than 170 scientists and staff members. Goetze became a US citizen on July 4, 1967 two years before the Apollo moon landing.

In addition to the special patent awarded for the SEC process, Goetz was awarded the Longstreth Medal from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. This prestigious award recognized his invention and the impact it played in ultraviolet astronomical observations, as well as his work on night surveillance technology and broadcast television. In 1966, his SEC tube was named one of the 100 most outstanding scientific and technical achievements by Industrial Research Magazine.

It’s estimated that at least one quarter of the earth’s inhabitants watched the lunar landing and Armstrong’s first footsteps as it happened. The moon mission took over ten years and cost close to 25 billion dollars which would be about 100 billion dollars today. It took over 400,000 people working together to create the parts and needed pieces. The camera technology Goetze and his group developed captured color images on the flights to and from the moon, and the black and white images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they walked on the moon’s surface.

Looking back, the black and white flickering, grainy images don’t seem like very much, but at the time, they surely drew a collective gasp. People and companies were proud to contribute to the space program, and NASA was smart to scatter contracts throughout the nation, awarding companies like Westinghouse with jobs and contracts.

In his free time, Goetz’s passion was gliding, and he spent many weekend hours at the Harris Hill Soaring Club with his family. Another Elmira soaring enthusiast was only 13 years old that summer. Thirty years later, Colonel Eileen Collins went on to be the first female commander of a space shuttle.

 

Colonel Eileen Collins, autographed photo from our collection

But for one warm summer evening in July 1969, the nation and the world watched together and marveled at what humankind had accomplished.

The Moon, taken by Apollo 11 astronauts (source: NASA photo)

Eclipse Mania: Chemung County’s Moment in the Path of Totality

By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator

On August 21, 2017, I stood in the parking lot of the museum with my coworkers staring up into the sky. “The Great American Eclipse,” as it was dubbed, was not as impressive in Elmira as it was in other parts of the country, but nonetheless, we all watched with our special glasses and cardboard boxes. It was an event that most people you talked with were excited about and it felt like it brought about a brief moment of unity and positivity into our national conversation. This got me wondering about earlier eclipses and I found records of a far better one that we got to witness this year.   

Beginning at 8am on January 24, 1925, Chemung County was in what we now call the “Path of Totality” of a solar eclipse. In fact, it was almost smack in the middle of the 100-mile-wide path of the shadow that was moving at 2,000 miles per hour. Totality occurred around 9am, blanketing the area in darkness for a minute and 15 seconds.

There was significant excitement leading up to the eclipse. Professor Mary Clegg Suffa of Elmira College gave a lecture about the science behind the phenomena. Other community organizations held similar programs leading up to and following the event. Residents pestered Elmira officials to turn off the streetlamps during the eclipse, a request that was considered, but ultimately denied. Even still, the city’s electrical usage measurably decreased during the eclipse as many factories ceased work temporarily to let employees go outside. 

Articles by experts urged people not to look directly at the eclipse, but to instead view it through a smoked glass. And that glass was in high demand with people hoarding scraps weeks before the eclipse. When the eclipse occurred, people stood on the streets with smoked glass or old photo negatives. Articles also printed instructions for viewing the eclipse through a hole punched in cardboard.

Amateur photographers hoped to capture the eclipse, but professional local photographer Fred Loomis warned that many people would be disappointed when they had their film developed. Even Loomis, with his better equipment was unable to secure the kind of images he was hoping for. 

This photograph from an unidentified photographer is in our collection. So at least some people were able to beat the odds!

While some people were afraid the eclipse was an omen of something terrible, only one oddity was reported as a result. During the eclipse, thousands of seagulls took flight from the Chemung River and headed toward Watkins Glen where they roosted at night. When the eclipse was over, the confused birds turned around.  

The eclipse was heralded as a once in a lifetime event for most local residents, but there was one man who had the fortune of having experienced this once before. Edward Elford, an Elmira Heights man, had seen a total eclipse in 1870 when he was a young boy living in England.