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Has Anyone Seen the Moon Pictures? 474

Posted by samzenpus from the we-never-landed-there-anyway dept.
NASA has received a lot of bad press in the last few years. Now in a stunning move to prove how much they have learned from past mistakes, it appears they have lost the magnetic tapes that recorded the first moon walk. They also seem to have misplaced the original recordings of the other five Apollo moon landings. Hopefully nobody has taped an episode of "The OC" over them yet.
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Has Anyone Seen the Moon Pictures? More

Has Anyone Seen the Moon Pictures?

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  • Dupe? (Score:4, Informative)

    by trawg ( 308495 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:18AM (#15878758) Homepage
    Don't have time to double check but at first glance this appears to be a dupe:

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/1 3/1654200 [slashdot.org]

  • oh no! (Score:5, Funny)

    by drDugan ( 219551 ) * on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:22AM (#15878771) Homepage
    I can see it coming now... a tinfoil hat brigade shouting,
    "that's because we never WENT to the moon!" and
    "The original tapes would have proved it!"

    • Re:oh no! (Score:5, Funny)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:57AM (#15878989) Homepage
      Not to worry, they can probably re-cut the film from the raw takes if MGM still has those.

      • Re:oh no! (Score:4, Funny)

        by binary paladin ( 684759 ) <binarypaladin@gm a i l . com> on Thursday August 10, 2006 @05:20AM (#15879151)
        Perhaps they can also digitally enhance them and release a "special edition" as per NASA's "original vision." Heh. It's time someone from the previous generation how their childhood retroactively destroyed.

        • Oh Yes! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by cluckshot ( 658931 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @06:57AM (#15879301)

          One of the unique realities of living in the area of Huntsville, Alabama (MSFC) is that you get contact with people who are actually doing things. If you make the right contacts, you know who and what is going on. Here is what is going on regards to NASA and the original data from the Apollo missions. More precisely what has gone on.

          The US officials at NASA ordered the destruction of all of the records associated with the Apollo Missions after the last flight to the moon. The Chief of the Records realized how stupid this was and he conspired with certian persons to have some 8 tons of records moved to a secured location with persons in custody who would not tell where the records were or admit they existed. The reason I know of this is that I had extended contact with the man who set this up. The reason he told me was that the discussion of returning to the moon was coming up about 8 years ago and NASA sent a some men out to see him asking if the rumor was true that he had done this and where they could get the records. He told them it didn't exist but on my arrival he was spitting mad at the idiots at NASA over wanting the records. He feared that they might be destroyed if NASA got them again. He felt they were priceless historic documents and that they must be protected. I do not expect them to appear for 100 years or more due to this.

          Contained in these records are films, data stores, and all of the technical documents for operation of the Apollo System. Why these were ordered destroyed he felt was a very malicious act. The real reason for the order was that the US Government at the time wanted to destroy the ability to return to the moon any time in the near future. They possessed about 5 rockets able to go and they wanted nobody able to operate them. The also did not want any more able to be fabricated. This discloses international agreements that involved the USSR and other parties that demanded the destruction of this data.

          Believe this or not if you will but this is in fact what happened. This discloses the very dirty nature of the behavior of some "well respected" parties in the world. I cannot hope to have people on this forum believe me, but maybe some will. The reason I was present was I was working as RN at the time and I was making Home Health visits 2 times a day to the home. Frankly I was more trusted than the NASA people by this former high ranking NASA man. My experience with such men has included former German Rocket Scientists and many others. When you meet these people you learn what has really gone on.

          This man who was the chief of the record keeping for the Apollow program told me how a year before the Sputnik launch the President of the United States had ordered the entire US Army Missile program lab at what is now Marshall dismantled and taken to the dump. When the Sputnik launch panicked the Americans, He and others had to go to the Base Dump and with their own money buy back the "Scrap" equipment in order to get the lab going again. Even the first test stand they built was built this way. It is now an historic monument! [army.mil]

          The description of some details here is slightly modified so as to keep some nasty people off the trail and to protect the records. The title of the position the man held is descriptive but not the real title. I am not sure if this man is still alive and I don't want to cause him or his associates any trouble. There have been several attempts to secure these records to have them destroyed over the years since 1973.

          • Re:Oh Yes! (Score:3, Insightful)

            by jridley ( 9305 )
            If they want those records to last 100 years, they'd better take care of them, not just put them in a box. In 100 years the tapes will be dust or goo unless copied to new media.

          • Re:Oh Yes! (Score:3, Insightful)

            by DerekLyons ( 302214 )

            One of the unique realities of living in the area of Huntsville, Alabama (MSFC) is that you get contact with people who are actually doing things. If you make the right contacts, you know who and what is going on. Here is what is going on regards to NASA and the original data from the Apollo missions. More precisely what has gone on.

            What seems to have gone one is that either you have ingested a large quantity of drugs - or you have ingested a massive quantity of drugs.

            The US officials at

      • Re:oh no! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by v1 ( 525388 )
        I assume there are two sets of recordings to consider. The original TV broadcast was live, so we can be fairly certain that those masters are magnetic, recorded back on earth while they were live broadcasted. In the case of these shots, there was no film master to recut magnetic tapes from. Even if film was eventually made from the tapes, the tapes are still the masters.

        In those shots we also saw several instances of the astronauts hopping around with what looked like hand-held video recorders, and I wou

        • Re:oh no! (Score:3, Informative)

          by Detritus ( 11846 )
          The video cameras on the Moon were not connected to local video-tape recorders. The video signal went from the camera to the transmitter for relay to the Earth. Any recordings would have been made at the tracking station on the Earth.

      • Re:oh no! (Score:5, Funny)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday August 10, 2006 @08:15AM (#15879503) Homepage Journal
        Not to worry, they can probably re-cut the film from the raw takes if MGM still has those.
        Neil Armstrong shot first!

        • Re:oh no! (Score:3, Funny)

          by Lumpy ( 12016 )
          I work at NASA and we tried that. Problem is that George Lucas "remastered" them and now we have the moon looking like a death star and Neil Armstrong looks like a storm trooper.

          I tell you, trying to get anything faked anymore in hollywood is damned impossible, they want explosions and Gobs of CG and other artistic crap.

          Look at the last shuttle launch! you can see on camera 4's view the Polygons breaking up of the CG earth.

  • My my my. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:22AM (#15878772)
    How convenient, almost as if we never landed on the moon at all.

  • If they did really land on the moon... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ichigo Kurosaki ( 886802 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:22AM (#15878773)
    they are doing a horrible job of silencing the conspiracy theories.

  • No backup?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Enselic ( 933809 ) * on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:25AM (#15878785) Homepage
    "Ok, I have this original video with the first man on the moon, should I make some backups? Nah... Is it important that I remember where I put it? Nah..."

    • Re:No backup?! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nefarious Wheel ( 628136 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:46AM (#15878841) Journal
      Ok, I have this original video with the first man on the moon, should I make some backups? Nah...

      Old technology sucks. I know, because I'm an old technologist.

      The year was 1969, peeps, 37 years ago.

      Magnetic tape degrades. For the 7 track stuff used back then you were lucky to get 7 years out of a tape -- that's why the IRS required only 7 years backup of data, they couldn't reliably ask for more. 9 track wasn't substantially better. Look up "print-through" (you may have to resort to paper sources for that).

      Disk space was expensive and hard to get too -- 55mb IBM 2370 disk pack cost about $1K each or worse in old money iirc. People weren't even aware of the need to make backups yet, and that was for data only -- the idea of storing video in digital form didn't happen until the late 70's when JPL trialled storage of images as well as image catalogues (don't ask about JPLOS -- please. Or Mark IV.).

      Film degrades too. We've lost a lot of original movies and animation because of the chemically active film substrata.

      I wouldn't be surprised if they "lost" it because the media simply degraded to the point of unusability. When was the last time you wrote your congresscritter to have NASA data archives funded properly? They're mostly living from grant to grant there and conserving this fantastically important data won't happen without a push. So push!

      Mmmm. Lost a planet Obi-Wan did. Embarrassing!

      • it's a real shame though. the videos belong in the smithsonian, it was a pivotal moment in human history. 200 years from now people are going to be kind of annoyed that they can't show a decent image of the first moon landing on the display floating in the lounge of the most popular of the 17 lunar casinos.

      • Re:No backup?! (Score:5, Informative)

        by m0rph3us0 ( 549631 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:13AM (#15878902)
        Umm... the 7 year thing comes from the Mosaic code, not magnetic backup media. Something about all debts being forgiven after 7 years. It has nothing to do with magnetic storage and has been part of British Common law for centuries.

      • Re:No backup?! (Score:3, Informative)

        by Don Beasley ( 994366 )
        Dude, have you heard the Jimi Hendrix remasters?

        I spent two years playing thirty-year-old 3/4" video tapes direct to air about a year ago. The labels were falling off but the tapes were fine - less foulups than the newer 1990s format we also used. I'm sure NASA's climate-controlled environment is better than ours.

        Yer absolutely right, though, that we should ensure adequate funding for NASA's data archives.

        • Re:No backup?! (Score:5, Informative)

          by leenks ( 906881 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @05:11AM (#15879130)
          Perhaps those tapes were on stock not vulnerable to the binder degrading over time causing the oxide to literally fall off the backing, or that has a problem often known as "vinegar syndrome" where the binder reacts with the backing producing a sticky residue (I believe certain Ampex tapes from the 70's/80's are good examples of this). Many recording studios have been stung by these problems, particularly the residue one, to the point that specialist companies have sprung up to deal with the problems. One solution is to cool or bake the tapes respectively, but it doesn't always work.

          One large classical music label in the UK (sadly now dead) had major issues with these problems in the early 90's, and decided to take action before it was too late. They played all of their tapes through a specially modified deck which I believe had basically huge swabs to catch the residue before the tape passed any of the mechanism. The audio was then recorded onto modern DAT tape. Those master tapes were all almost certainly ruined in the process, but at least there is a backup on modern DAT using tape which is supposedly not susceptible to the problem.

          More information at http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byauth/st-laurent/c are.html [stanford.edu] and http://www.tiguersound.com/Studio_Information/Tape Bake.html [tiguersound.com]

  • Not alone (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 15Bit ( 940730 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:26AM (#15878787)
    The BBC does exactly the same. They've lost vast numbers of TV programmes over the years. Every so often an episode of Dr Who, Hancock's Half Hour or Steptoe and Son turns up in the basement of some guy who used to work there.

    I guess the difference is that the Beeb never really thought these things were historically important, and hence had poor archiving rules. You'd hope that this was not the case at NASA.

    • Its not uncommon to hear about corporate/government/personal data/documents/papers/footage being lost, especially in today's information age. How many times have people forgotten what they named a certain file. In fact, whats a good method of cataloging DOCUMENTS? By date? The user who created it/last modified it? The title of said document? The 'level of importance'? Multiply this by the number of employees in your company and you have THOUSANDS of documents being made daily, often times with similar file
    • NASA Administrator: "You mean we can save money by just putting this stuff on YouTube? And we don't have to spend money storing it anymore? Do it right now and then sell the tapes for surplus. My annual review is coming up and I want to look good to HR."

      Underling, scribbling: "Sell tapes, check into YouToob. Ask Ted Steven what it means."

      -- Nine days later --

      Underling: "I sold the tapes, boss!"

      NASA administrator: "And the backup onto YouTube?"

      Ling: "Huh? Oh, knew I forgot something!"

      NASA administra

  • Remakes? (Score:5, Funny)

    by BACPro ( 206388 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:32AM (#15878802)
    With remakes being the rage in Hollywood, this shouldn't be a problem at all...

  • Hoboy. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Soko ( 17987 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:32AM (#15878803) Homepage
    "Houston, we have a problem..."

    Soko

  • 100 year format (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ccady ( 569355 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:33AM (#15878809) Journal
    What technology should I use if I want to make sure my video and photos of today is around for my great-grandchildren? (Assuming they care...) Is there a service that will keep them continually updated in a lossless digital format? How would they get paid?
    • Colour photos sealed in an N2 environment.
    • Carving text or hexa strings into rock or glass is unfortunately the only reasonably safe way of storing data for over a century.

    • Re:100 year format (Score:5, Funny)

      by henriquemaia ( 733518 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:17AM (#15878912) Homepage
      Don't worry too much about that - geeks don't even get laid, so there's no point of talking about your great-grandchildren.
    • "How would they get paid?"

      By the pixel at the 100yr mark, the less original content they maintain the less they get paid ^_^

      Of course, this leads to the whole "lets encode in realmedia dialup quality mode" that way you wouldn't even need to pay them 5 min later ;)

    • Re:100 year format (Score:2, Informative)

      by ComaVN ( 325750 )
      if it's homemade porn, just put it on p2p with a memorable and unique filename, and it will float around for all eternity.

      Ask libby [wikipedia.org].

    • Make a point of reviewing the content you wish to preserve at least annually, and make sure that a backup exists in a separate geographic location.

      If you have any trouble whatsoever accessing it, make sure you recover it and change the storage format if necessary. Don't put it off a year.

      And if you don't want to review the content annually yourself, what makes you think your great-great grandchildren will give a hoot about it?

      If you really want an idea to last, and you think it's worth saving, wr

    • Copy to new media (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 )
      Seriously, that's the great part of digital media and what give it longevity. You don't make things last by trying to put them in a format that will last forever and tuck that away, you just copy them to new formats perodicly. CD or DVD will work fine for now. Copy them to one of those, make 4 copies. Put 2 copies each in two seperate locations, maybe two in a bank safe deposit box, two at home. Then, just remember to refresh the backup. I'd do it a minimum of once every 5 years, or when you get a new, bett

    • Re:100 year format (Score:4, Funny)

      by Ihlosi ( 895663 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @06:54AM (#15879294)
      Encode the really important stuff as DNA and add it to the genome of various critters (preferably some ubiquitous bacteria among them). Let reproductive behavior do the rest.



      Of course, we need to make sure that the really important stuff does not contain an 'eradicate humanity' sequence by accident.

    • Funny thing: An old colleague of mine recently recovered some old research data from punched plastic tape (coated paper, actually) that we used to input the CDC-160G back in the mid-60's. Barcoding has an even higher reliability, and can be coded for error correction. It's probably not as space-efficient as what we have now, but my mom has tape measures from the early 1800's that are still readable. Maybe we should print the data in barcode on fabric?

  • no (Score:4, Funny)

    by Madcapjack ( 635982 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:35AM (#15878814)
    What? I never got an overdue notice from them. Damn, their server must be jammed again.

  • SOL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by helioquake ( 841463 ) * on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:36AM (#15878817) Journal
    Goddard has been undergoing some organizational restructuring over years. That means office shuffling and renovations here and there. It often involves spring cleaning of all the junks piled up on top of shelves and cabinets.

    My guess? Some old geezers probably had thrown them away into a garbage bin. It's probably got dumped into some industrial dumping site in New Jersey or somewhere... that said, it's SOL to me.

    [I saved one optical disc from a garbage bin once...I'm sure it contains some IUE data, not the moon landing stuff... there is no way to read the damned thing anywhere to be sure...]

  • ARRGH! -The greatest human accomplishment lost?! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by spineboy ( 22918 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:37AM (#15878820) Journal
    How could this be misplaced! This is arguably one of the greatest human accomplishments ever!

    P.S. Let the flame wars begin!
    PPS The Armstong moon walk is proably my earliet memory,and I remember watching it with my great Grandma who was born before the first auto and airplane.
  • It's okay - in a thousand years, there'll be a theme park on the moon, and nobody will care about the original moon landings anymore because the moon is boring.

  • For those who take too much "Focusin" (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cherita Chen ( 936355 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:39AM (#15878824) Homepage
    Bottom line is this, we went to the Moon! If you truly believe that it was a hoax, please read this [wmich.edu] - and then for the love of FSM [venganza.org], get off the ADD drugs and re-evaluate...

  • I found it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:43AM (#15878832)
    I found it. [google.com] NASA can thank me later.

  • Yeah, right... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ninwa ( 583633 ) * <jbleau@gmail.com> on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:46AM (#15878839) Homepage Journal
    FTA: "But the searchers may be running out of time. The only known equipment on which the original analogue tapes can be decoded is at a Goddard centre set to close in October, raising fears that even if they are found before they deteriorate, copying them may be impossible."

    Is the article honestly trying to suggest that NASA couldn't reverse engineer a format and design a player for it if the original player was lost? I personally find that a little hard to believe. It just sounds like a convenience excuse to create a "give-up searching" date. In my oppinion these tapes are very important to our country's history. It's almost shameful to me to think they could have lost them so easily.

    Go America!

    • Re:Yeah, right... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Aufero ( 993962 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:09AM (#15878893)
      "Is the article honestly trying to suggest that NASA couldn't reverse engineer a format and design a player for it if the original player was lost? I personally find that a little hard to believe." I don't. If NASA did it, it would require five years, fifteen administrators, and fifty million dollars. The quarterly funding reviews alone (much less the reviews of the reviews) would take up more time than the project, and the funding would be proxmired halfway through to pay for a bridge to an island owned by a friend of some congressman. If they ever find the tapes they should hand them over to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which would probably have them transferred to more durable media in six months at a cost of $30,000.

    • Re:Yeah, right... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @10:02AM (#15880467) Homepage
      The format isn't a big mystery, it's IRIG 106 if anyone cares. The problem is that as part of the continuing budget crunch at NASA, made worse by the need to scrounge money from the existing budget for new tasks like a Shuttle replacement and going to Mars, many activities and facilities are being cut or eliminated. The lab that can handle these old tapes, the Data Evaluation Lab at Goddard, has lost its funding. That means that it will be closed at the end of this fiscal year. The equipment goes into storage or is surplused. The people have to find other jobs or be laid off or retire.

      Building a recorder from scratch would be insanely expensive. These recorders cost anywhere from $50-100K when they were new and being manufactured in quantity.

      It's easy to say that "they" should keep and maintain the hardware, catalog and store the tapes in climate controlled warehouses, and do all the other things needed to preserve the data for future generations. That doesn't pay the bills. Just storing a tape can cost a dollar or more a year. That doesn't sound too bad until you realize that a single spacecraft can easily generate tens of thousands of tapes. Another problem is that at $100-200 for a new reel of tape, there has always been a large incentive to recycle and reuse tapes for current missions.

  • I think the show comes on in about 15 minutes - I am strangely compelled to listen to the predictable call-ins from the reality-challenged.
    • I'd sure like to live in the same world where you do and everything under the sun is explained and nothing weird, strange, or unusual happens. Ever. Not even once in a while.

      • Ah, so I see you like weirdness. So do I.

        I guess you missed my point, which I assumed would be understood: the flakes will trumpet this as evidence that the moon landing never happened and aliens are in our midst.

  • Let's ask James Thurber and the princess! (Score:3, Funny)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @02:48AM (#15878846) Journal
    Tonight is full moon actually, so it should get stuck somewhere in the trees.

    Surely NASA can arrange for some pictures in my garden?

  • the NLM and really long term storage (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drDugan ( 219551 ) * on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:06AM (#15878883) Homepage
    I was recently at a meeting in Bethesda at the NIH and heard Don Lindberg, the director of the national library of medicine talk about long term information storage.

    After going through all the normal stuff about media degrading and backups, etc -- he made a really interesting point: The only way to really ensure REALLY LONG storage - like tens of thousands of years is to keep having people accessing information. The point he made is that all the storage technology will continue to evolve, and it's only the information we stop accessing that will fall into danger of getting lost.

    I thought it was a good point.

    Why on earth do we not have access to the original data from the Moon landings? If we did, lots of people would have a copy around. Silly secretive state.

    • Because the original un-edited tapes are boring, dirty, and for the most part uninteresting. It would be like trying to watch Independance Day from the original cutting room floor. Like others have said, only public interest keeps these things funded, and only a small fraction of the public is interested in more than the first steps and the famous quote.

  • Neil's gettin old (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:10AM (#15878896) Journal
    We better hurry and send him back up to redo it.

  • Should have been in the library of congress (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hrvatska ( 790627 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:14AM (#15878904)
    NASA isn't an archival institution, so it's not surprising that something like this would happen. If tapes are found, they should be turned over to an organization for which the archiving of printed and recorded material is one of its central missions.

  • What about the copies? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bushido Hacks ( 788211 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:29AM (#15878935) Homepage Journal
    Surely, ABC, CBS, and NBC must have copies of this event. What about the reporters who covered the event? Certainly, Walter Cronkite must have a copy of the event that night. I mean, he WAS their.

    On the other hand, I am so tired of all these so-called "conspiracy theorists" who are making a conspiracy out of things that were NOT a conspiracy. I mean, look at what these poser conspiracy theorists are making conspiracies out of.

    The poser conspiracy theorists will give you a bullsh*t conspiracy to keep you occupied from the real conspiracies that are occuring. Here is just some of the events they are sensationalizing into false conspiracies.
    • The moon landing
    • 9/11 (for pete sake! It was only five years ago!
    • The Davinci Code
    Now here is a list of unsolved mysteries and nefarious plots that are true conspiracies becausse no one wants to admit that they are occuring.
    • Peak Oil and Gas Prices (This one needs the most attention right now.)
    • Big Brother and soulserveilance
    • Corporate backrubs for governments/New World Order/World Trade Organization
    • Suppressed technology and cures. (Marajuana does not count!)
    • Subliminal Advertising. (for example: "Head on! Apply Directy to the Forehead" x3)
    • Extraterrestrial Life (SETI needs your help BTW! The government is cutting their funding again.)
    • The Kenedey Assassination
    • Where's Jimmy Hoffa?
    • Protecting the Earth from ourselves. (Bibles and Bombs do not mix!)
    • Occult and paranorma phenomenon
    I would recommend that the world spend a little more time tending to the second list and not the first list. But hey, people are stupid. They'd rather watch TV and let TV dictate what they should think. (I'm talking to you, Mr. I-watch-Fox-news-four-six-hours-in-the-evening.)

    Everyone else needs to put their glasses on and see the truth. [flickr.com]
    • Surely, ABC, CBS, and NBC must have copies of this event. What about the reporters who covered the event? Certainly, Walter Cronkite must have a copy of the event that night. I mean, he WAS their.

      You should have read the article first (this time or the previous time it came on /.)

      Sure the TV stations have a copy. But it is a bad-quality copy because it is a camera shot of a monitor that showed the original downlink signal.
      What they are looking for is a tape that recorded the original downlink (not in broa

  • New motto (Score:2, Funny)

    by mr1337 ( 799579 )
    NASA's new motto: "What? and you're perfect?"

  • and they did not have to deal with DRM (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jackjeff ( 955699 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:50AM (#15878976)
    Just imagine the first landing on Mars, and the "lost video" message that will go with it some 100years later...

    NASA used a special high quality encoding scheme, which was not widespread in those days. In addtition it was protected by a DRM made by company "x", which went bankrupt some 30 years ago... well we have the file, maybe we could even reverse engineer the DRM, but it's illegal because of DMCA.... Sorry dudes, the recording are lost forever because we need to protect the copyright holder rights :)

  • I know where it is (Score:4, Funny)

    by Centurix ( 249778 ) <centurixNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday August 10, 2006 @03:56AM (#15878986) Homepage
    It's the one marked Buzz Aldrin: 1956 Wedding Tape.

    He'll never forget taping over that one...

  • I found the lost video here (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUkwr-KXa98 [youtube.com] Looks like the real deal. ;)

  • A BETTER Moon Landing (Score:4, Funny)

    by bishop186 ( 784357 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @04:46AM (#15879090)
    It's cool. George Lucas took 'em -- he's going to add the things that he couldn't add the first time because of budget constraints. They'll resurface in a couple years complete with better special effects and a new ending where the Ewoks dance with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren.

  • A lot of it (Score:4, Informative)

    by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @05:14AM (#15879137) Homepage Journal

    is here [nasa.gov]

  • Don't worry! (Score:3, Funny)

    by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @06:59AM (#15879304) Journal
    Don't worry, I've found the original Moon film on ebay! [ebay.com]

    I knew NASA's funding was desperate, but I didn't know it was that desperate!

  • it would not surprise me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @07:20AM (#15879346) Homepage Journal
    if these tapes have been in some very rich person's "personal museum" for the last several years, the result of a quiet and large payoff to someone that had access to the archives. Things like this don't just "disappear", they "grow legs".

  • Did we land? Look for yourself (Score:3, Informative)

    by ThosLives ( 686517 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @08:02AM (#15879465) Journal

    The moon has an orbital radius of 384,400 km. The radius of Earth is 6370 km. If you want to try and see the lander bits we left, they are probably on the scale of 2 meters.

    From the surface of Earth: 2 meters at a distance of 378,030 km subtend an angle of 5.29 x 10^-9 radians. The angular resolution of the human eye is about 1/60 of a degree, or 2.91 x 10^-4 radians.

    So, just build yourself a telescope with a 55000X magnification and you should be all set.

  • NASA is starving (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Catbeller ( 118204 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @10:42AM (#15880834) Homepage
    I recall visiting the Space Center in 1996. What struck me most was the delapidation. The buildings were 1966 vintage; rot and decay was everywhere. It looked like a trailer park in its last days.

    NASA has been villified for decades for being bloated and wasteful. Nice try, space haters, but they have been performing wonders on pennies for decades. They probably don't have the money to manage old film inventory or have redundant security features.

    And a HUGE, HUGE problem is that the people who know where everything is were canned for budgetary reasons. They have little institutional memory. (a miniature model of the same problem which afflicts all our institions as they trim the "fat" and lose their history as the old timers go out the door, pensionless.)

  • This is funny. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MaWeiTao ( 908546 ) on Thursday August 10, 2006 @01:12PM (#15882323)
    What I find funny about the faked lunar landing conspiracies is that the arguments are all based what would have been glaring oversights on NASA's part.

    So I'm supposed to believe that these guys were extremely meticulous in recreating a lunar environment they'd never even experienced, but were so inept they didn't notice inconsistent photos, improper lighting and various other problems.

    It just goes to show that regardless of how overwhelming the evidence may be people will go right on believing whatever they want.

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