Feb 16th, 2016: Graffiti

[Leus]

Bruce, this has to be one of the most interesting things I've seen on teh intarwebs in the past few years. Thank you very much!

[xoxoxoBruce]

We do it all for you, Leus.

[glatt]

I saw a comment in the thread at the link mentioning the paint job. So I went back and looked at the paint job. The pain looks fairly thick and mottled. I'm not sure what purpose it serves other than being a good surface to write on. What was there, like 10 pounds of paint? How much did it cost to launch that much weight to the moon and bring it back? Wouldn't it have been better to use that to bring more moon rocks back?

There was water condensation in the capsule in Apollo 13 (at least according to the movie) but that only happened because they were trying to save power and turned the heaters off. Normally you wouldn't have condensation like that and need to protect the metal against rust. Plus, the service life of the craft was a few days. It's not gonna rust much in that time. And wasn't it aluminum anyway? Now I've got all sorts of questions about paint use in space craft interiors.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Made primarily of aluminum alloy, stainless steel and titanium, the Apollo 11 command module is one big reflective surface which the scanners have difficulty reading.

No chance of rust.
I don't think the paint is that thick, but it does look like it was a hurry up job and definitely with a brush. It may have been to cut down on reflective surfaces, or an antibacterial paint, or some Psychologist/Psychiatrist determined a uniform color/that color, was better for their heads.