Apollo 11 TV Tapes Go Missing, slashdot.org article Options

[hal_9000]

From http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/07/13/1654200.shtml


Apollo 11 TV Tapes Go Missing

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 13, @07:22PM
from the check-the-roswell-basement dept.

NASA Space

Richard W.M. Jones writes "On July 21st 1969, Honeysuckle Creek observatory brought us the first TV pictures of men on the moon. The original signals were recorded on high quality slow-scan TV (SSTV) tapes. What was released to the TV networks was reduced to lower quality commercial TV standards. Unfortunately John Sarkissian of Parkes Observatory Australia reports that 698 of the 700 boxes of original tapes have gone missing [warning: large PDF] from the U.S. National Archives. Even more worryingly, the last place on earth which can actually read these tapes is scheduled to close in October this year. The PDF contains interesting comparisons which show that if all you've seen are the TV pictures from the landing, you really haven't seen the first moon walk in its full glory."

PDF: http://www.honeysucklecreek.net.nyud.net:8..._SSTV_Tapes.pdf
SITE: http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/TV_from_Moon.html

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Since no one mentioned it, I thought I'd point out that today is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. How many of us remember watching it on TV in 1969?

[Phil Stooke]

Oh yes, I certainly did. I was a teenager in England, where the EVA happened after midnight. I stayed up all night, my family thought I was nuts. They showed it live, then when it was over they repeated the whole thing, and after that I walked down the road and bought one of every newspaper as the shops opened. It was great! Bliss was it, etc.

Phil

[dvandorn]

Yep -- thirty-seven years and thirty-eight minutes ago (as I type this), Neil Armstrong set his booted foot onto the surface of the Moon.

Seeing as each of the Apollo 11 crew was 38 years old at the time of the flight, each is 75 years old on this date. Kinda makes ya feel old, don't it?

I was 13 and a half years old at the time, myself. I was certain I would see any number of things by the time I reached 50. I haven't seen any of them.

Now, *that* is what really makes me feel old... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

[Toma B]

I was 13 and a half years old at the time, myself. I was certain I would see any number of things by the time I reached 50.I haven't seen any of them.
-the other Doug

Well we saw some things didn't we? There are MERs,Cassini etc...
I was born in 1972 and one of mine greatest wishes for many years was to watch live broadcast from the Moon...

[elakdawalla]

To my sadness I was born too late (1975) to witness any of the Apollo adventures. To me they seem to belong to the realm of science fiction, along with all the Asimov and Cherryh books I read. The first year I really remember things happening for real in space was 1986, which saw two big events: the Challenger disaster and Voyager at Uranus. Voyager, of course, is the adventure that thrilled and inspired me, and it still does. As much as I love the MERs, Galileo, Magellan, and Cassini, whenever anyone asks me what my favorite mission is, there's no contest.

I'm not sure what it will be like in the future to see those booted feet return to the Moon. I don't think there's much of a case for sending new "explorers" to the Moon, except as practice for manned exploration agencies -- what people will want next on the Moon is, I think, "pioneers" -- people who go to establish a permanent human presence. I'm not sure if the public will find that more or less romantic. I think I'll find it to be less so, but then I like novelty; and life in a small base on the Moon will undoubtedly be filled with much of the same boring but critically necessary grind of maintenance activities that fills the astronauts' time on the ISS. The next boot-footed "explorers" will be those who make footprints on Mars. Or maybe Phobos or some asteroid. (Now that would be cool.)

--Emily

[djellison]

I too missed the whole Apollo experience ( by 3 years more than Emily ) - but I must admit - I was listening to the Planetary Radio show from 3 or so weeks ago when Matt was talking to the guys up at the Glacier via Sat Phone, and I thought "OK - so there's no 10 minutes delay....but that's what people might sound like when they're walking around on Mars"

Footprints in our wheeltracks....one day...and I have no doubt that the moment will reduce me to floods of tears.

Doug

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I too missed the whole Apollo experience ( by 3 years more than Emily )...

The first one I consciously recall was the John 'n' Charlie Show (Apollo 16), when I was a wee lad who had just turned three years old. The lunar missions were a big deal to little boys back then, along with GI Joe. I remember for my fourth birthday my mom decorated the cake à la Apollo (J-series). It had red, white, and blue icing, and was topped with a pretty good scale model of the LM, two astronauts, LRV, and an American flag. I guess I hadn't developed my patented wisecracking attitude enough to ask, Mom, where's the ALSEP?

I still have those those little models, by the way. Ah, memories!

[Phil Stooke]

I think there's still plenty of exploration to do on the moon. I'd prefer not to see just an outpost, but I think we'll get a reasonable mix of outpost and sorties. My favourite site to visit would be Ina (D-caldera), near Mare Vaporub - I mean Vaporum - either with a capable rover or with people.

Phil

[Bill Harris]

I was a college sophomore at Apollo 11 and remember watching it on the television in the dormitory rec room. My first space recollection was watching Echo I.

This makes me feel ancient: Emily and Doug, do you realize that I've owned the motorcycle that I drove into work today longer than either of you have been around?

--Bill

[The Messenger]

Richard W.M. Jones writes "On July 21st 1969, Honeysuckle Creek observatory brought us the first TV pictures of men on the moon. The original signals were recorded on high quality slow-scan TV (SSTV) tapes. What was released to the TV networks was reduced to lower quality commercial TV standards. Unfortunately John Sarkissian of Parkes Observatory Australia reports that 698 of the 700 boxes of original tapes have gone missing [warning: large PDF] from the U.S. National Archives.

Anyone look in the Richard Nixon Library for them

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

My favourite site to visit would be Ina (D-caldera), near Mare Vaporub - I mean Vaporum - either with a capable rover or with people.

My favorite area was a candidate for the cancelled Apollo 18, 19, & 20 missions: the Cobra Head/Schröter's Valley/Aristarchus Plateau region.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Jul 21 2006, 06:33 PM

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

This makes me feel ancient: Emily and Doug, do you realize that I've owned the motorcycle that I drove into work today longer than either of you have been around?

That reminds me of what a professor once told me when I questioned one of his statements: "Sonny, I've been tenured longer than you've been alive."

[dvandorn]

My favorite site to visit would be the rim of Tycho. My second favorite would be the floor of Copernicus. In August of 1969, I was "promised" I would see both before Apollo ended. I would really like to see them before I'm ended...

-the other Doug

[Stephen]

Oh yes, I certainly did. I was a teenager in England, where the EVA happened after midnight. I stayed up all night, my family thought I was nuts.

Luckily my own family didn't think like that. When Armstrong & Aldrin decided to go early it was the middle of the day for me--a school day! So I might have missed the entire thing. (I was about The Other Doug's age.) Fortune smiled, however. My mother came and plucked my brothers and me out of class and took us home to watch it.

(Not that you saw very much at first! As anyone who saw that telecast can testify, at first the contrast was so bad that it was not at all clear what you were looking at! To me it looked like a lot of vague shapes of lightness and shade shifting about in incomprehensible ways. It was only later that it improved. I've since read that some of the powers-that-be at NASA were appalled when they saw those pictures. There they were spending billions to land a man on the Moon yet some penny-pincher had scrimped on what must have seemed at that moment to be was the most important item on board: the TV camera.)

======
Stephen