Grumman Mock-Up Hasselblad 500 with Telescopic Lense, 1960

This wooden mock-up of the storied Hasselblad 500 camera with telescopic lens was produced by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation as a practice tool or prototype for the real camera. The actual Hasselblad 500, on which this mock-up is based, was produced by the eponymous Swedish manufacturer and used for many years as the official picture-taking device for NASA’s space voyages. The first Hasselblad 500 C cameras were used on the final two Project Mercury missions in 1962 and 1963, followed by the Gemini space flights in 1965 and 1966. Electric cameras were used for the first time on Apollo 8, with a heavily modified "Hasselblad Electric Camera" (500 EL) used on board the spacecraft. Three 500 EL cameras were carried on the Apollo 11 Mission, with a more comprehensively modified Hasselblad EL Data Camera (HDC) used on the moon's surface to produce now-iconic images of planet earth.