Apollo program missing tapes

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The Apollo missing tapes are the missing original recordings of the transmissions (Slow-scan television and telemetry data) broadcast during the Apollo 11 moonwalk^[1].

1 Background
2 Alternative interpretations
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Background

The video of the Apollo 11 moonwalk was transmitted in Slow-Scan TV (SSTV) format (see Apollo TV camera). This raw data was recorded onto one inch wide fourteen-track analog magnetic data tapes at the same time as it was converted to the format for viewing on conventional television ^[2]. Although recordings of the Apollo 11 moonwalk made after the real-time scan conversion exist and are publicly available, the SSTV tapes recorded before the format conversion are missing. With modern technology, better quality video of the moonwalk could be obtained from the original SSTV tapes.

There are about 2612 boxes that might contain the tapes and whose location is unknown. It is estimated that about 13,000 original magnetic tapes are missing.^[3] They might be at Goddard Space Flight Center or another location within the NASA archiving system. If the tapes are found, modern techniques would allow the production of higher quality television pictures of the Apollo 11 moonwalk than were seen by the public (and which are currently available). Apollo 11 video recorded after the scan conversion and high quality video from the other Project Apollo missions exists.

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."^[4]

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.^[5]

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". ^[6]

The Goddard Center's Data Evaluation Laboratory, which has 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.^[7] ^[8]

A January 2007 article stated that the missing Apollo 11 tapes have not been found ^[9]. Currently the tapes are still missing.

[edit] Alternative interpretations

Proponents of the Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations maintain that the tapes never existed, and that only low quality video was faked in order to cover inevitable errors.^{[citation needed]}