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To the Moon!
Author: BobR
Date: 07/17/2009 12:24:43
I am a person of a certain age. Other people my age know what I'm talking about. We were alive and remember things that happened in the past that other people only know from history books. We remember 8-track tapes, we watched the Jackson 5 animated TV show, and we remember watching the moon landing on TV. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind..."
How disappointing, then, to find out that NASA "taped over" the data tapes containing the original footage of the moon landing:
:thud:
Why would it be important to keep the original tapes? As I heard recently on a news story about this, the video that was received from the moon was in a "proprietary format" that was not usable for broadcast. This required that the data be converted. The conversion process resulted in poor quality images; from the article:
Since the original tapes can't be accessed, NASA is turning to Hollywood to enhance the video quality:
Naturally, this will make the conspiracy theorists' heads explode. Not only are we sharpening the video to include things not there, but the loss of the original video means all proof is gone. (To get a better understanding of why (and how) people think the landing video was faked, check out MythBusters take on it).
But perhaps all proof is not gone. A new lunar orbiter will be taking detailed pictures of the landing site:
I am looking forward to seeing these photos. Will it quell the conspiracy theorists? Of course not - they'll simply claim THESE photos are fake too. I say: let the heathens rage. They cannot tarnish my memory of sitting in front of a crappy black & white TV, clutching my model rocket, and watching Neil Armstrong step out of the lunar lander and into history.
From Tranquility Base - over.
How disappointing, then, to find out that NASA "taped over" the data tapes containing the original footage of the moon landing:
NASA could put a man on the moon but didn't have the sense to keep the original video of the live TV transmission.
In an embarrassing acknowledgment, the space agency said Thursday that it must have erased the Apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the videotape.
[...]
Nafzger said a huge search that began three years ago for the old moon tapes led to the "inescapable conclusion" that 45 tapes of Apollo 11 video were erased and reused. His report on that will come out in a few weeks.
The original videos beamed to Earth were stored on giant reels of tape that each contained 15 minutes of video, along with other data from the moon. In the 1970s and '80s, NASA had a shortage of the tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them.
How did NASA end up looking like a bumbling husband taping over his wedding video with the Super Bowl?
Nafzger, who was in charge of the live TV recordings back in the Apollo years, said they were mostly thought of as data tapes. It wasn't his job to preserve history, he said, just to make sure the footage worked.
:thud:
Why would it be important to keep the original tapes? As I heard recently on a news story about this, the video that was received from the moon was in a "proprietary format" that was not usable for broadcast. This required that the data be converted. The conversion process resulted in poor quality images; from the article:
Back in 1969, nearly 40 percent of the picture quality was lost converting from one video format used on the moon — called slow scan — to something that could be played on TVs on Earth, Nafzger said.
Since the original tapes can't be accessed, NASA is turning to Hollywood to enhance the video quality:
The studio wizards who restored "Casablanca" are digitally sharpening and cleaning up the ghostly, grainy footage of the moon landing, making it even better than what TV viewers saw on July 20, 1969. They are doing it by working from four copies that NASA scrounged from around the world.
"There's nothing being created; there's nothing being manufactured," said NASA senior engineer Dick Nafzger, who is in charge of the project. "You can now see the detail that's coming out."
The first batch of restored footage was released just in time for the 40th anniversary of the "one giant leap for mankind," and some of the details seem new because of their sharpness. Originally, astronaut Neil Armstrong's face visor was too fuzzy to be seen clearly. The upgraded video of Earth's first moonwalker shows the visor and a reflection in it.
Naturally, this will make the conspiracy theorists' heads explode. Not only are we sharpening the video to include things not there, but the loss of the original video means all proof is gone. (To get a better understanding of why (and how) people think the landing video was faked, check out MythBusters take on it).
But perhaps all proof is not gone. A new lunar orbiter will be taking detailed pictures of the landing site:
NASA's sharp-eyed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is gearing up to look down on the Apollo 11 landing site – the location of the first human foray to the moon 40 years ago this month.
Along with carrying out lunar science jobs, the moon-circling probe in coming days, weeks and months will photograph selected lunar targets, zooming in on a short list of Apollo landing locales to see the final resting spots of robotic spacecraft, moon buggy tracks and crashed rocket stages, SPACE.com has learned.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is already on duty and using its LRO Camera, dubbed LROC for short.
I am looking forward to seeing these photos. Will it quell the conspiracy theorists? Of course not - they'll simply claim THESE photos are fake too. I say: let the heathens rage. They cannot tarnish my memory of sitting in front of a crappy black & white TV, clutching my model rocket, and watching Neil Armstrong step out of the lunar lander and into history.
From Tranquility Base - over.
