Does anyone know what Walkman/ cassette player they used on the Apollo 11 journey? It’s explicitly mentioned in the First Man film, which I thought was excellent. Armstrong literally throws a tape at buzz aldrin and they all listen to some music on floating spinning Sony.
I'm not sure if they had the right one. The Samsung TV which they watched the Russian Spacewalk on was way out of place. However, they did use Sony Cassette recorders on the Space Missions https://www.sony.net/Fun/design/history/product/1960/tc-50.html https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/recorder-audio-cassette-apollo-12 and the best picture. http://www.shizaudio.ru/walkman/67/revolyutsiya-prishla-s-vostoka-sony-tc-50 Have you just seen the film ? We saw it this afternoon and wish we hadn't bothered. Not a patch on Apollo 13 or Hidden Figures. If you are still intent on going my tip would be to sit well back in the Cinema (we were in the luxury seats at the front) as most of the film is in Jerk-O-Vision, extreme close up or both. Reading customer reviews we aren't the only people to have complained about that.
I only know of the one used on the Apollo 13 mission, which was shown in the original in-capsule footage of it playing the theme from "2001: A Space Odessey" (Strauss).
I happened to see the Walkman scene again last night at work, just by chance. I couldn’t be 100% sure but it appears to be the TC-50. It’s amazing, it’s basically an advert for trendy space travel. As for the film, the launch scenes are incredible and sound design very well constructed. At times it sounded like an old Volkswagen engine, and the rattling of the tin can really quite unsettling. The rest of the film is fine, it’s got some scenes of marital stress and some human tragedy but to be honest it falls into the trap of most historical films- it’s not a documentary, it’s drama and so it emphasises sex and beauty. Which if you’re into rockets can be good or bad depending on your therapist
In the photo you see two astronauts, it is actually a Sony advertisement that appears in LIFE magazine (1969), I do not recognize them as real astronauts. I have a Sony TC-50 recorder, and as we see in a NASA report they were used in the Apollo missions, "Handbook of Pilot Operational Equipment for Manned Space Flight" http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/sony-tc-50-service-manual.5881/
Music on the Moon: Meet Mickey Kapp, Master of Apollo 11's Astro-Mixtapes https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/12/mickey-kapp-apollo-11-astro-mixtapes
I was at the Air Zoo in Michigan and saw this display of part of the International Space Station. They sleep upright and this is real mockup of one of the astronauts including a portable CD player!
