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Has Anyone Seen the Moon Pictures?
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Aug 10, 2006 01:15 AM
from the we-never-landed-there-anyway dept.
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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Apollo 11 TV Tapes Go Missing 438 comments
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."
[+]
Backslash: Terror Plot, NASA, DHS Patch Alert 341 comments
Read on for some of the most interesting comments from yesterday's stories on NASA's lost moon-walk tapes, the reported foiling of a large-scale terror attack planned against the U.S. to have been staged from the U.K., and the Department of Homeland Security's sudden warning to patch Windows with the latest security updates, in today's Backslash summary of those conversations.
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Dupe? (Score:4, Informative)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/
Re:Dupe? (Score:5, Funny)
oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
"that's because we never WENT to the moon!" and
"The original tapes would have proved it!"
Re:oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh Yes! (Score:4, Interesting)
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 no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's because we probably didn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've looked into the arguments that the moon landings are fakes. Every single argument that has been made has been countered, without exception.
For example, no stars in the pictures from the moon? Well, there wouldn't be - stars are very faint, and the exposure time for the film was insufficient to allow them to be seen.
Objects appearing to be over the top of the etched markings on the pictures? That's image-bleed caused by slight over-exposure - a well known photographic problem.
The flag waving? Well, of course it's going to wave when it's being moved around, that's simple physics, and will continue to wave for a while since there's no atmospheric resistance to help stop it.
And so on.
The simple reality is that it would have been harder to convincingly fake the moon landings than to go there.
Re:Parent post is moronic. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe they just believe that, you know, the US was unable to get a person to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. Nothing to do with aliens, pyramids, evolution or creationism, just that they couldn't and didn't do it.
As for myself I don't believe that, having seen sufficient evidence to convince me 99.9% that humans did in fact go to the moon in 1969 but that doesn't make it 100% absolute fact and it sure as blazes doesn't make anyone who disagrees with me an idiot.
Otherwise I'd be no better than the tinfoil hatters who partake in conversations with their fingers in their ears.
Re:Parent post is moronic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why of course the US wasn't able to get a person to the moon. That's why they borrowed all those German rocket scientists, who were out their jobs anyway after launching rockets at London became unfashionable.
Re:Parent post is moronic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing can ever be proven to be. The is goes wihtout saying for everything. It's when you start to adamantly believe the less likely scenario that you have some backing up to do, and the arguments for fakery are all pathetic at best.
Now, it is beyond any doubt possible to send stuff to the moon. It's just a question of applying known physics and technology, doing lots of tests, and spending a helluva lot of money. Faking it and keeping it secret until now would probably have cost much more than just going fpr real, so even bother?
Re:Parent post is moronic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you know there are people who do not experience pain at all? It's extremely rare, but they do exist. So I'm inclined to say you are wrong... Then again the articles and documentaries I've seen of the subject might be fake, so I just can't be absolutely sure.
Re:Parent post is moronic. (Score:5, Insightful)
We didn't just magically build a rocket and magically get to the Moon. And Shepard's and Gagarin's flights didn't magically appear either - they were based on 35 years of liquid fuel rocket science started by a geeky guy at his aunt's farm, name of Goddard - perhaps you've heard of him. By 1969, you're talking about 45 years of liquid fuel rocket engineering. Sure, engineering problems cropped up in designing something big enough to get to the Moon but they weren't insurmountable and by that time we had already figured out life support, multiple stage rocketry, reliable engines, computers, and the navigation systems needed to get from here to there and back.
Can you even grok what it would take to pull off a hoaxed moon landing? You need to fool the entire Federal government, thousands of engineers, the entire US Navy, and all the people at places like Lockheed _including their investors_. And throughout all of this, you have to make sure that possibly thousands of people who know "the secret" that they will never talk, even on their deathbeds.
And then you have to fool all the scientists with rocks that can't look like anything found on Earth.
It's just simpler to go to the moon and back. It's like "looking busy" at your employment - it's actually easier to do real work than to fake it.
Even the government most capable of pulling off propaganda by faking a moon landing decided against it. The Soviet Union was a much more closed society and Star City was off limits to foreigners. They were ahead of us, and even got to the Moon before us with robotic probes. The entire far side of the Moon is full of Russian names! They could have staged a landing, and nobody would have been the wiser in the West until the fall of the Soviet Union two decades later. Yet they didn't. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS A STUPID IDEA.
The fact is, the original poster is _just like_ those who believe in pyramid building aliens and creationists because they deny logic, history, human nature and plain evidence of reality. They are uneducable dolts.
--
BMO
Re:Parent post is moronic. (Score:4, Insightful)
If they're crazy for thinking that the government is always lying to us, you're foolish for believing that the government never lies to us.
The government that brought us the Tuskeegee experiment, non consentual testing of psychotropic drugs or exposing retarded children to radiation [cambridgeclarion.org] is capable of damned near anything.
LK
My my my. (Score:5, Funny)
If they did really land on the moon... (Score:4, Funny)
No backup?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No backup?! (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Re:No backup?! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No backup?! (Score:5, Informative)
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/
Not alone (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Remakes? (Score:5, Funny)
Hoboy. (Score:5, Funny)
Soko
100 year format (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:100 year format (Score:5, Funny)
Re:100 year format (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, we need to make sure that the really important stuff does not contain an 'eradicate humanity' sequence by accident.
no (Score:4, Funny)
ARRGH! -The greatest human accomplishment lost?! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:ARRGH! -The greatest human accomplishment lost? (Score:4, Informative)
For those who take too much "Focusin" (Score:4, Informative)
I found it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I found it! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Yeah, right... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
the NLM and really long term storage (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:the NLM and really long term storage (Score:4, Insightful)
a)The stuff only exists to be used in the first place. Don't use stuff and there won't be any stuff to preserve.
b)Much of the value in historical artifacts comes from examining their wear patterns. Used stuff is usually more historically valuable. Unused stuff simply commands a higher price from collectors, which usually has the side effect of making the artifacts . .
KFG
Should have been in the library of congress (Score:4, Insightful)
I know where it is (Score:4, Funny)
He'll never forget taping over that one...
A BETTER Moon Landing (Score:4, Funny)
A lot of it (Score:4, Informative)
is here [nasa.gov]
it would not surprise me (Score:5, Insightful)
Conversion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"lost moon pictures" (Score:5, Funny)
KFG
Checklist (Score:5, Funny)
( ) paranoid
( ) delusional
(x) impossible to confirm
(x) impossible to refute
Specifically, your theory fails to account for
( ) Stupidity of the general population
( ) Stupidity of the politicians
(x) Lack of supporting evidence
(x) Plenty of contradictory evidence
(x) Lack of a centrally controlling authority for conspiracies
(x) The facts can be explained without need for real conspiracy
(x) Scientists generally don't participate in conspiracies
(x) Failure to mention the Illuminati
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been proven
(x) That's what they WANT us to think
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, you're batshit crazy
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Re:Checklist (Score:4, Funny)
( ) delusional
(x) impossible to confirm
(x) impossible to refute
I am insulted that you do not consider me paranoid and delusional. In fact, I consider this is a libel. You'll be hearing from my Somoan lawyer, as soon as he actually exists.
KFG
Re:Checklist (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Checklist (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Checklist (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Checklist (Score:4, Funny)
[snip]
(x) The items you hage checked contradict each other.