Apollo program missing tapes

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The Apollo missing tapes are the missing original recordings of the transmissions broadcast during the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The tapes included Slow-scan television (SSTV) and telemetry data. Videotapes and kinescopes of the Apollo 11 moonwalk made after the scan conversion for viewing on conventional television are not missing[1].

Photos taken from the same source as the missing tapes.

Contents

[edit] Background

Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion.
Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion.
Photo of the degraded image after the SSTV scan conversion.
Photo of the degraded image after the SSTV scan conversion.

The video of the Apollo 11 moonwalk was transmitted in SSTV format (see Apollo TV camera). The SSTV signals were received by the radio telescopes at Parkes Observatory, the Goldstone tracking station, and Honeysuckle Creek tracking station.[2] This signal was split and sent to a data tape recorder and to equipment so it could be converted to standard TV format for viewing on conventional television and broadcast around the world. The crude real-time scan conversion for world-wide broadcast was not done electronically, but was done by using a conventional television camera pointed at a monitor displaying the SSTV images [3]. The scan conversion reduced the contrast, brightness and resolution of the original SSTV video, and introduced noise into the pictures. The resulting video seen on home television receivers was further degraded in quality by the long analog transmission path the signal took from the receiving ground stations back to Houston, Texas. The raw data was recorded onto fourteen-inch reels of one inch wide, fourteen-track analog magnetic data tapes at 120 inches per second [4].

The Apollo 11 moonwalk video after the scan conversion was recorded contemporaneously onto videotape and kinescope. These recordings exist and are available to the public. (High quality video from the other Project Apollo missions exists and is also available to the public.) If the SSTV tapes are found, modern technology would allow the production of higher quality television pictures of the Apollo 11 moonwalk than were seen by the public. See the comparison photographs [5].

[edit] Missing tapes

Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion.
Photo of the high-quality SSTV image before the scan conversion.
Photo of the degraded image after the SSTV scan conversion.
Photo of the degraded image after the SSTV scan conversion.

The missing tapes are among over 700 boxes of magnetic tapes made throughout the Apollo era which can not now be located.[6] On August 16, 2006 NASA announced its official search. "The original tapes may be at the Goddard Space Flight Center … or at another location within the NASA archiving system", "NASA engineers are hopeful that when the tapes are found they can use today's digital technology to provide a version of the moonwalk that is much better quality than what we have today."[7]

The news that the tapes were missing broke publicly on August 5, 2006 when the printed and online versions of The Sydney Morning Herald published the story with the title One giant blunder for mankind: how NASA lost moon pictures.[8]

NASA is also looking for these tapes as the new Project Orion will carry out the same tasks as the original Apollo Command and Service Modules: "Get a team of astronauts to the moon and back safely". [9]

The Goddard Center's Data Evaluation Laboratory, which has the only known piece of equipment that decodes the analogue tapes, was set to be closed in October 2006 raising fears that, even if they are found, it might not be possible to decode and copy them.

On November 1, 2006 Cosmos Magazine reported that some other lost telemetry tapes have been discovered in a small marine science laboratory in the main physics building at the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. However, it is unlikely that these tapes contain the slow scan video. One of the old tapes has since been sent to NASA for analysis.[10] [11]

A January 2007 article stated that the missing Apollo 11 tapes have not been found.[12] As of July 2007 the tapes are still missing.[13] An amateur 8 mm film movie of about 15 minutes of the Apollo 11 SSTV images (before conversion) was rediscovered in 2005 and is available on DVD. [14]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wikinews, Apollo Moon landings tapes reported missing, August 13, 2006
  2. ^ A Tribute to Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
  3. ^ Clavius: Technology - television quality
  4. ^ John Sarkissian, The search for the Apollo 11 SSTV tapes, CSIRO Parkes Observatory, May 21, 2006
  5. ^ http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/Apollo_11_TV_comparisons.pdf
  6. ^ John Sarkissian, The search for the Apollo 11 SSTV tapes, CSIRO Parkes Observatory, May 21, 2006
  7. ^ Richard Macey, NASA orders search for missing moonwalk tape, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 17, 2006
  8. ^ Richard Macey, One giant blunder for mankind: how NASA lost moon pictures , The Sydney Morning Herald, August 5, 2006
  9. ^ Larry Wheeler, NASA hopes archives have map to moon, Florida Today, Sept 24,2006
  10. ^ Carmelo Amalfi, Lost Moon landing tapes discovered, COSMOS Magazine, Nov 1,2006
  11. ^ Australia ABC News Online, Aust scientist to give NASA original moon landing tapes, November 2, 2006
  12. ^ Marc Kaufman, The Saga Of the Lost Space Tapes, The Washington Post, January 31, 2007
  13. ^ A Tribute to Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station
  14. ^ A Tribute to Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station

[edit] External links