Camera, Hasselblad, 70mm, Mercury

Inspired by Walter Schirra's purchase a Swedish-built Hasselblad 500C 70mm single-reflex camera in the late 1950s, one was also modifid for his Mercury-Atlas 8 mission in 1962. That mission made this type of camera a standard for astronaut photography. This artifact is one of the hand-held Hasselblads of the type used by Mercury and Gemini astronauts to photograph the Earth and other objects in orbit. It was modified to operate smoothly in the space environment (removal of the mirror and focusing hood), took specially made 70mm film magazines with Kodak's specially manufactured film, and was equipped with a Zeiss f 2.8 80 mm focal length lens. It is not known if it flew on a particular mission.

NASA Johnson Space Center transferred the camera to the Smithsonian in 1978.