Apollo 11 TV Tapes Go Missing 438
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."
Um.... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if I can talk them out of the late fees again.
Re:Um.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Um.... (Score:4, Funny)
they claim its the fastest in the world!
Re:Um.... (Score:5, Funny)
More like... (Score:3, Interesting)
I knew I forgot to return those rental tapes.
More like they'll show up on eBay.
There's always the possibility a retiring employee thought they wouldn't be missed. Or some overefficient bureacratic paper shuffler elected to do something about all those dusty boxes on the shelf which look utterly horrid (ever have one of these people sweep into your office and suggest your desk needs cleaning?) and would win some kind of medal if they could only dispose of them and put a spit shine on those shelves.
Re:Um.... (Score:3, Funny)
How convenient. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
So what if they did plan to invade Cuba by shooting down a civilian airliner over Cuba and
then blaming Castro for it (Operation Northwood, if you're into FOIA documents), so what
if George W(anker) Bush's Grandpa Prescott cut Onkel Adolf a cheque every now and then and now
they're friends with BinLaden Terrorgroup Inc. so what if these people used unsuspecting
civilians and military unwittingly as subjects in radiation
Re:Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is lots of evidence that we landed on the moon (900 pounds of moonrocks being a good part of it). But to say, "I know we landed on the moon 'cause I saw it on my Tee Vee!" is ridiculous.
Considering the low resolution television images that came back, it would have been very easy to fake it.
Re:Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!! (Score:5, Insightful)
TV may be low resolution, but there were several things you could see that still would have only been possible in an airless environment and a substantially lower gravity. Many of those scenes could not have been faked in a studio, even today, let alone in 1969. While one may try to argue that they were faked with photorealistic animation, that leaves the nasty problem of actually GETTING photorealistic animation.... in 1969. Oh... but that creates yet another conspiracy: that NASA and the government had more computing power available to them in 1969 than modern movie studios with huge render farms have today. And it just gets worse from there... one has to keep inventing more extravagant and obviously contrived excuses about why we can't possibly find any evidence for the truth while simultaneous suggesting that all the evidence that might contradict their theory is "obviously" planted which just goes to further "prove" the conspiracy. (insert rolling eyes expression here).
It's about on par with a Jehovah's Witness trying to say that the geological evidence for an old planet was just put there by God to test our faith.
Any attempt at a rational discussion with a conspiracy theorist quickly devolves into a flurry of conjecture and hypothesis with no logical foundation. Occam's Razor be damned.
Re:Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Like what? I'm not asking be snotty or anything...
I love working out how you could fake the moon landings. Not that they were fake, but could it be done with 1969 technology in such a way that no one at NASA would be aware of it? I agree, I hear these stories of advanced computer graphics and I shake my head. NASA cannot be in on the j
Re:Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!! (Score:3)
Re:The real moon conspiracy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The real moon conspiracy (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm afraid sir, that Occams razor says that you are a conspiracy nutbag. I did some research, with my eyes open and my head soft.
From Wikipedia: Proponents of the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax have argued that space travel to the moon is impossible because the Van Allen radiation would kill or incapacitate an astronaut who made the trip. Van Allen himself, still alive and living in Iowa City, has dismissed these ideas. In practice, Apollo astronauts who travelled to the moon spent very little time in the belts and received a harmless dose. [5]. Nevertheless NASA deliberately timed Apollo launches, and used lunar transfer orbits that only skirted the edge of the belt over the equator to minimise the radiation. Astronauts who visited the moon probably have a slightly higher risk of cancer during their lifetimes, but still remain unlikely to become ill because of it.
Now I'm not saying this is the best authoritative source, but the citation
[5] The Van Allen Belts and Travel to the Moon. Infrared Processing and Analysis Center. Caltech: (2000). Retrieved on 2006-06-11
appears to have more rational arguments in favour than you present against.
If that bit of conspiracy nuttiness is the best argument you have, then I'd say you've got a pretty weak case. Unfortunately reality is much more boring than fantasy conspiracies, because generally the accepted hypothesis is correct, even if its boring because it does not involve secret cabals etc. Conspiracy theories generally fail because they assume that politicians and people in powerful possitions are very good at keeping secrets and not making mistakes. Whereas all evidence of their behaviour points to the absolute opposite. The general level of incompetency would prevent any major conspiracy from working, or being kept secret for more than a few days.
Hope you can open your eyes and not be so hard headed ;-)
Re:The real moon conspiracy (Score:5, Informative)
Van Allen belts:
Fuel issues: Craters and the like: Lunar Module takeoff film:Re:The real moon conspiracy (Score:3, Informative)
One of the things that has fascinated me in the past when reading stuff on the site, is that the way things often work in space often seems to contradict common sense and intuition, even for the scientifically minded.
Re:The real moon conspiracy (Score:3, Funny)
Dude.. are you retarded? Do you know what sound is? Geezus.. you learn in 4th grade science that sound is the vibration of air molecules. There is no atmosphere on the moon, doofus. Sound isn't possible.
A
Re:Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!! (Score:4, Funny)
Unless...
Unless of course...
Re:Oh come on now, you can't possibly be serious!! (Score:4, Informative)
Behold more mass-media lies (part of the conspiracy no doubt) here!! [wikipedia.org]
Even if the footage was all faked, and NASA was nothing but a PR department gone wrong, *something* qwnt to the moon and placed very specifically calibrated censors there, coincidentally, these censors have been used WORLDWIDE for some 40 years now. Fade back...Occum's razor trumps David Duchovny for the win.
Re: (Score:2)
So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So.... (Score:2, Funny)
Yep - I've been trying to tell people for years that the footage was edited, but everyone just called me "crazy"... MUAHAHA. Then they go and claim that they are only calling me that because I laugh maniacally at the end of every sentence. MUAHAHAHAHAA!
Re:So.... (Score:2)
Re:So.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So.... (Score:2)
I much prefer the original. Please don't let him anywhere near it.
Back them up! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Back them up! (Score:2, Funny)
Oh.
Re:Back them up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, but this brings up the debate about distribution, copyright, and file sharing.
Just think. If these recordings were digitally transferred and uploaded somewhere like http://archive.org/ [archive.org] (which I believe they belong), then we would have access to these things basically forever in the best quality that they could be.
As Linus has said, "Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it."
Well, times have changed and p2p is arguably better than ftp.
I've got some more copies. No worry (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I've got some more copies. No worry (Score:2)
Ebay? (Score:4, Funny)
I've got them... (Score:2, Funny)
Fer criminy's sake, the tapes are labelled "Faked Moon Landing".
Your ass is mine, NASA!
Not surprising, actually (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not surprising, actually (Score:3, Funny)
you mean, like one giant leap?
Re:Not surprising, actually (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, at the University of Chicago we've been doing this sort of thing for about four years now [uchicago.edu], though with a bit more than statues. It's time consuming given the current state of scanner hardware, the shear amount of data to be collected and stored and the absolutly shitty software [rapidform.com] availiable, but it's certainly not extremely difficult. Unless, of course, you count something that's time consu
1 box would be normal, but 700.... (Score:5, Informative)
But I find it odd that they could misplace all the boxes. The check-in/ check-out procedure used at the archives is fairly regimented- to screw something that large up requires a deliberate effort to delete or mis-file the boxes.
To give you an idea, a box is received / dropped off at the archives. It has it's master database that says "This box is #####". The organization that drops it off maps a number assigned by the archive to that box, and said org maintains all the details of what is IN the box.
The archives then move the box and it's paperwork to the specific row, shelf, and complex. I believe they are to make a total of 12 to 15 'pulls' per hour, which when we were wanding meant actively finding an item in about 2 minutes after you walk into a complex (this place is huge- each complex is a football field).
The paperwork is then returned to central processing for annotation and entry into the DB.
But to lose 700 CF (each box is 1 CF or so) requires serious effort- that implies that someone filed them all in either the wrong complex or completely off the wall location- and that NO ONE has tried to place another item on wherever they are currently sitting.
Now, assume they've been actively 'pulled' for a number of years. Your standard pull & return places a piece of paper at the boxes location- it's a copy of the form showing who pulled it and when. The paper sits where the box originated- I saw some papers from the 70's which implied that the organization pulled the item yet is still paying around 30 cents / month for that space.
A permanent withdrawl could have been done to 'stop the monthly fees', but that means the box wouldn't necessarily go back to the same spot. If all those boxes were moved around the entire archives it would be nearly impossible to locate- there's just not enough eyes to find them- and even then you can double stack boxes to boot so you'd never see them.
So... either the boxes are there or someone checked them out. If they were checked out and the paperwork was lost.... you'll never find them. If they weren't checked out, you would need a miracle (and yes, they do have 'reward' sheets for lost boxes posted around the area) to find them. Maybe there's a cache of boxes somewhere... and then maybe not.
youtube please (Score:3, Funny)
Did they ask Dan Rather? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Did they ask Dan Rather? (Score:2)
Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
It's like first person vs. third person games. Accepting that there can be different viewpoints, no one perspective can show "all" the "glory". Neil likely experience a different, very powerful glory as he jumped down - but has also, quite
How can you "lose" 698/700 boxes??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the PDF is slashdotted so I can't read it I also am curious as to why if "the last place on earth which can actually read these tapes" closes down someone won't be able to save whatever is required to read the tapes, are they just going to trash the machines? That would seem pretty stupid to me. Anyone have any answers?
The worst part is the conspiracy theorists claiming the landing never occurred are going to go nuts over this. Almost all the tapes of the landing mysteriously disappear as well as the only way to read the tapes, if I was one of them I would go nuts too.
It's "How can THE GOVERNMENT lose 698/700 boxes?" (Score:2, Insightful)
Very easily. They can have all the best recordkeeping procedures in the world, and still lose anything through poor recordkeeping practices despite procedure. And before y'all attribute it to conspiracy theories, I remind you: Don't attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by stupidity.
Re:It's "How can THE GOVERNMENT lose 698/700 boxes (Score:2)
Re:It's "How can THE GOVERNMENT lose 698/700 boxes (Score:3, Funny)
stolen, of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Because most likely they were stolen by NASA employees/managers, government contractors, or "given" (improperly) to elected officials. There a case within the last few years where someone found a storage room at NASA chock full of stuff including two space suits [wired.com]. The stuff was supposed to have gone to the Smithsonian, but oops, gee, donchaknow, it just mysteriously ended up in a storage room nobody knew anything about.
Rumsfield had a piece of the airplane that hit the Pentagon, as a showpiece- almost like a trophy. There were plenty of other examples of thefts [google.com]. I doubt any of the victim's families saw so much as a pebble. In the executive branch of the federal government the World Trade Center site was like a free-for-all memento/souvineer stop. I'd be astounded if visiting officials at NASA didn't have the same 'sticky fingers'.
Re:stolen, of course (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:stolen, of course (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of this can be attributed to staff turnover and lack of continuity. I used to work in a building associated with various launch programs at Vandenberg AFB. I found out at some point that the systems I was responsible for used to be housed in a basement computer room, and that there might still be documentation and stuff there. But with the exception of the maintenance guys, NO ONE had key card access through the three locked doors you had to go through, and no one had even been assigned responsibility for those areas. When I finally did get access, I found whole racks of equipment that were still powered on, not connected to the outside world. A power line monitor had logged every power glitch for years before its paper tape finally jammed. To this day, I think there are still racks of backup tapes down there.
Of more historical interest, I was once in a plain, ordinary conference room in another building when someone pulled aside the curtains draped around the walls to show me what was there. One whole wall was covered with a schedule matrix running from maybe 1985 through 1989 or so, with little magnetic space shuttles on it. When the west coast shuttle program was canned back in '86, they just pulled the curtains closed and walked away.
Yeah, some stuff of historical value gets stolen. But much of it is just overlooked, misfiled, misplaced, or just plain forgotten.
Re:stolen, of course (Score:3, Interesting)
The area where I grew up had a lot of mining history in the 1890's and some up until the 1940's. When I was young and we'd go out exploring in our Jeep sometimes we'd come across old mine buildings way up in the middle of nowhere that had been similarly abandoned at the end of one season and just never opened back up: cookhouses with all the spices still on racks on shelves, bunkhouses with newspapers and gloves. Two years ago I was hiking way above treeline and cam
PDF (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PDF (Score:2)
Re:How can you "lose" 698/700 boxes??? (Score:2)
As far as why there won't be any more SSTV tapes is that techn
Re:How can you "lose" 698/700 boxes??? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: How can you "lose" 698/700 boxes??? (Score:3, Funny)
That would be uncharacteristic thoroughness.
Re:How can you "lose" 698/700 boxes??? (Score:2)
Re:How can you "lose" 698/700 boxes??? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Iron Chef is good, but I like Jamie Oliver too.
Re:How can you "lose" 698/700 boxes??? (Score:2)
I actually was very intrigued when I first learned that people thought the landing was faked. I did a lot of research looking at both sides and I finally decided there was more convincing evidence on the side saying the landings were real. There definitely is still a lot of strange occu
Originals look worse (Score:2)
It may have something to do with the way they got the image, but man, they're not really proving their point with 'em.
Re:Originals look worse (Score:2)
Re:Originals look worse (Score:2)
Re:Originals look worse (Score:2)
Re:Originals look worse (Score:2)
What on earth are you talking about? Did you look at the same pdf I did? They showed photographs taken of the original monitors that look way better than the footage that eventually found it's way to TV.
Are you sure you didn't misread the captions under the pictures?
torrent ? (Score:2, Funny)
i found the release
NASA.faked.moon.landings.1969.LiMITED.VHSRip.Xvid
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Terrible! (Score:3, Funny)
And You Trust Government? (Score:2)
Because career employees in the "Public Service Sector" function almost as Tenured Professors's, virtually by design, there is little way to make government entities "perk up", as you can't get rid of positions or employees who are not keeping up. Solution = add more departments (more tax dollars).
There have been debacles with
Apollo 11: The Special Limited Collector's Edition (Score:5, Funny)
New, never-before scenes will be inserted into the middle of the old, staid footage!
Tom Hanks will replace Neil Armstrong through the magic of digital effects!
Kristie Alley will be Buzz Aldrin, adding an exciting new romantic subplot to the mission!
A lovable animal sidekick will have your kids squealing in delight!
Gagarin shoots first!
Master directors Spielberg and Lucas will also modernize the plot and imagery to give a fresh, "post-2001" look!
The American flag, such an archaic-looking symbol (that didn't test well with audiences overseas), will be replaced with a pleasant, pastel blue UN flag. The ugly SUV 'lunar rover' will be digitally removed, and replaced with bicycles which the astronauts will pedal about the moon. The President will be updated to be a Texan oil millionaire conducting a needless war in Asia, who commander Michael Collins (played by academy award-winner Liam Neeson) will denounce for "having turned to the dark side". The "Cold War" sideplot will be updated to be a "Temporal War On Terror", which will feature terrorists from the future attempting to fly the Space Shuttle Columbia into the White House! Can our heroes stop them 'in time'?!
This and other new changes will keep the franchise fresh and exciting to today's viewers, and like Star Trek: Enterprise, will boldly re-write history that no one but nerds cares about anyways!
Apollo 11: The Special Limited Collector's Edititon: Coming Christmas 2006 - collect all 6 covers!
Re:Apollo 11: The Special Limited Collector's Edit (Score:2)
Sure (Score:2)
Good grief... (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to the new Digital Dark Age! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do so many people think Colombus discovered America? He got it into the permanent record, where the vikings, chinese, etc. didn't. Will Neal Armstrong be the Lief Ericson of the 26th century, and some one from the Chinese, Indian or Nigerian space program get all the credit, because they kept thir records?
Re:Welcome to the new Digital Dark Age! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to the new Digital Dark Age! (Score:4, Insightful)
Neal Armstrong could only become "the Lief Ericson of the 26th century" in some weird fantasy future - in which the thousands of books on the topic become lost, along with every TV recording, dozens of DVDs, about the same number of video releases, at least five different (LP) albums... Neal Armstrong is pretty firmly in the permanent record.
Re:Welcome to the new Digital Dark Age! (Score:3, Interesting)
To be fair, lots of people DO know other people got here first. It didn't become a big deal in the world because there wasn't any compelling economic reason for their discovery to be important. The route the Vikings took was followed by fishing fleets, which were working the North Banks between Greenland and Newfoundland in the 1400's: because there was incentive, they
The Dish (Score:2)
They're not lost (Score:2)
(Mars, Moon, what's the diff?)
Oh, sorry (Score:2)
Does it surprise anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
If a tree falls in the wood, and there is no proof, was a sound made?
Do the presidential libraries suffer that fate?
That critical things that the US (or any) Government is actually responsible for is, once again, messed up?
They are like an unfocused, irresponsible child, except they have big guns, our credit card with unlimited limit, and the legal system to perpetuate it.
If I am out of line consider Katrina, War on Terror, Social Security, the scandals, Halliburton, energy prices, approach to global warming, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Dumbasses all around.
Old Media: readable? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not faked...but UFOs in the background (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Does it really matter (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does it really matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does it really matter (Score:2)
Re:Does it really matter (Score:2)
Re:Does it really matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does it really matter (Score:5, Funny)
That would be a violation of the DMCA.
Even if you find the actual tapes, it doesn't prove ownership. At best, it suggests a possible license. But even a certificate of authenticity doesn't prove a license.
Without proof of a license, I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate those tapes, and levy a fine.
Re:Does it really matter (Score:3, Funny)
if it isn't, can we get them for providing false documentation or something?
Re:Does it really matter (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't lose 700 boxes, you lose the little piece of card/database entry which tells you which of the 100000 identical boxes are the 700 you are interested in.
Re:Does it really matter (Score:5, Funny)
Good grief, how dumb are you? (Score:2)
They moved to Area 51 after everybody was talking about Hanger 18 all the time.
Re:Gee, thanks. (Score:3, Informative)
Halley's comet last appeared in the inner Solar System in 1986, and will next appear in the summer of 2061. [wikipedia.org]
Surely some of us will live that long.
Re:Gee, thanks. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Australia!!!??? (Score:2)
Maybe the Moon was only visible from Australia during the landing, and they never bothered to cart the hi-fi versions across the Pacific. If the signal had to be relayed from Australia to the US, it was probably downsampled in real time. Just a wild guess. Anybody really know?
There was an Australian observatory scene in The Right Stuff, and this reminds me of that.
Re:Australia!!!??? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Australia!!!??? (Score:5, Interesting)
As it says in the summary, the tapes were stored in the U.S. National Archives. The man who reported them missing (John Sarkissian) just happens to work for CSIRO Parkes Observatory in Australia.
Re:Australia!!!??? (Score:5, Funny)
My advice:
Can you trust somebody who lives next to a giant space telescope? Who knows what planet their allegiance lies with?