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Has Anyone Seen the Moon Pictures?

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.

92 of 474 comments (clear)

  1. Dupe? by trawg · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't have time to double check but at first glance this appears to be a dupe:

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/1 3/1654200

    1. Re:Dupe? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      And the previous version is much more informative.

    2. Re:Dupe? by Quaoar · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't you get it? Slashdot is backing up this story so such a disaster can never happen to them.

      --
      I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
    3. Re:Dupe? by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh my god, thank you sir! Some people misplace videos of the moon landings, I misplace slashdot articles. Thank you for finding it!

      I was getting worried that someone had overwritten the article with a blog from MySpace ...

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  2. oh no! by drDugan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can see it coming now... a tinfoil hat brigade shouting,
    "that's because we never WENT to the moon!" and
    "The original tapes would have proved it!"

    1. Re:oh no! by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not to worry, they can probably re-cut the film from the raw takes if MGM still has those.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    2. Re:oh no! by binary+paladin · · Score: 3, Funny

      Perhaps they can also digitally enhance them and release a "special edition" as per NASA's "original vision." Heh. It's time someone from the previous generation how their childhood retroactively destroyed.

    3. Re:oh no! by v1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I assume there are two sets of recordings to consider. The original TV broadcast was live, so we can be fairly certain that those masters are magnetic, recorded back on earth while they were live broadcasted. In the case of these shots, there was no film master to recut magnetic tapes from. Even if film was eventually made from the tapes, the tapes are still the masters.

      In those shots we also saw several instances of the astronauts hopping around with what looked like hand-held video recorders, and I would assume those were motioln film, not magnetic. (though I suppose those may have been still image cameras? they looked like film though)

      From the article I am assuming it was the magnetic tapes made of the live broadcast that were lost? If that is the case, at least we should still have the film from the actual moonwalk recordings? Those should be better quality anyway, seeing as they didn't get mucked up by being transmitted such a distance with much lower tech at the time.

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    4. Re:oh no! by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Funny
      Not to worry, they can probably re-cut the film from the raw takes if MGM still has those.
      Neil Armstrong shot first!
    5. Re:oh no! by Detritus · · Score: 2, Informative

      The video cameras on the Moon were not connected to local video-tape recorders. The video signal went from the camera to the transmitter for relay to the Earth. Any recordings would have been made at the tracking station on the Earth.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    6. Re:oh no! by rspress · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ralph Rene, famous moon landing skeptic, is probably popping a woody about now.

      Actually the real information has been released!

      http://stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_la ndings.htm

    7. Re:oh no! by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Funny

      I work at NASA and we tried that. Problem is that George Lucas "remastered" them and now we have the moon looking like a death star and Neil Armstrong looks like a storm trooper.

      I tell you, trying to get anything faked anymore in hollywood is damned impossible, they want explosions and Gobs of CG and other artistic crap.

      Look at the last shuttle launch! you can see on camera 4's view the Polygons breaking up of the CG earth.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. My my my. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How convenient, almost as if we never landed on the moon at all.

  4. If they did really land on the moon... by Ichigo+Kurosaki · · Score: 4, Funny

    they are doing a horrible job of silencing the conspiracy theories.

  5. No backup?! by Enselic · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Ok, I have this original video with the first man on the moon, should I make some backups? Nah... Is it important that I remember where I put it? Nah..."

    1. Re:No backup?! by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 5, Informative
      Ok, I have this original video with the first man on the moon, should I make some backups? Nah...

      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!

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    2. Re:No backup?! by m0rph3us0 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Umm... the 7 year thing comes from the Mosaic code, not magnetic backup media. Something about all debts being forgiven after 7 years. It has nothing to do with magnetic storage and has been part of British Common law for centuries.

    3. Re:No backup?! by Don+Beasley · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dude, have you heard the Jimi Hendrix remasters?

      I spent two years playing thirty-year-old 3/4" video tapes direct to air about a year ago. The labels were falling off but the tapes were fine - less foulups than the newer 1990s format we also used. I'm sure NASA's climate-controlled environment is better than ours.

      Yer absolutely right, though, that we should ensure adequate funding for NASA's data archives.

    4. Re:No backup?! by leenks · · Score: 5, Informative

      Perhaps those tapes were on stock not vulnerable to the binder degrading over time causing the oxide to literally fall off the backing, or that has a problem often known as "vinegar syndrome" where the binder reacts with the backing producing a sticky residue (I believe certain Ampex tapes from the 70's/80's are good examples of this). Many recording studios have been stung by these problems, particularly the residue one, to the point that specialist companies have sprung up to deal with the problems. One solution is to cool or bake the tapes respectively, but it doesn't always work.

      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/c are.html and http://www.tiguersound.com/Studio_Information/Tape Bake.html

    5. Re:No backup?! by arglesnaf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Umm, the GP souced something older than the bible, the Mosaic code, as in Jews.

  6. Not alone by 15Bit · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The BBC does exactly the same. They've lost vast numbers of TV programmes over the years. Every so often an episode of Dr Who, Hancock's Half Hour or Steptoe and Son turns up in the basement of some guy who used to work there.

    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.

  7. Conversion by x2A · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nah you know what NASA folks are like with forgetting to convert things... it's actually sitting in a box on betamax, nobody wants to admit it.

    --
    The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
  8. Remakes? by BACPro · · Score: 5, Funny

    With remakes being the rage in Hollywood, this shouldn't be a problem at all...

  9. Hoboy. by Soko · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Houston, we have a problem..."

    Soko

    --
    "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
  10. Re:"lost moon pictures" by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    What we actually did was build studio on Mars, where it was easier to fake lunar conditions. I'm sure the original tapes would have shown this clearly.

    KFG

  11. 100 year format by ccady · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What technology should I use if I want to make sure my video and photos of today is around for my great-grandchildren? (Assuming they care...) Is there a service that will keep them continually updated in a lossless digital format? How would they get paid?

    --
    J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
    1. Re:100 year format by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Carving text or hexa strings into rock or glass is unfortunately the only reasonably safe way of storing data for over a century.

    2. Re:100 year format by henriquemaia · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't worry too much about that - geeks don't even get laid, so there's no point of talking about your great-grandchildren.

    3. Re:100 year format by mlush · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just buy a network storage device with a RAID

      Fire, Flood, Theft, Hardware faulure (esp the RAID controller) RAID IS NOT BACKUP!

      Copying it to newer media when hard drives are obsolted is an excellent suggestion but if your serious about photos lasting 100 years removable media is needed (preferably two copys one kept offsite). Unfortunatly there are no good domestic backup options, DVD degrate, HDD can fail (even when powered down), tapes are way too expensive. The Iomega Rev drive looks interesting but (click) is untested

      Perhaps the best suggestion I've seen is effectivly doing a DVD RAID and make a parity disk here and here for details, I only have one reservation about the suggestion in thoes posts. They propose burning the PAR2 files onto the same DVD I'd be inclined to burn it to a seperate disk but leave the outer sectors of the data disk blank as the outer edge is often the first part to fail (as the plastic splits apart). for extra peace of mind reburn (or at least test) the backups every couple of years.

    4. Re:100 year format by ComaVN · · Score: 2, Informative

      if it's homemade porn, just put it on p2p with a memorable and unique filename, and it will float around for all eternity.

      Ask libby.

      --
      Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
    5. Re:100 year format by Ihlosi · · Score: 3, Funny
      Encode the really important stuff as DNA and add it to the genome of various critters (preferably some ubiquitous bacteria among them). Let reproductive behavior do the rest.



      Of course, we need to make sure that the really important stuff does not contain an 'eradicate humanity' sequence by accident.

    6. Re:100 year format by theelectron · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, rock is better. Glass is actually a supercooled liquid, and will eventually flow into a puddle; though it would take greater than 100 years, so you would be ok if you used glass, but rock would last longer. But then would they still use the same file formats we use now? Will we still be using binary computers? Would people have any idea what the stuff carved in stone is?

  12. no by Madcapjack · · Score: 3, Funny
    What? I never got an overdue notice from them. Damn, their server must be jammed again.

  13. SOL by helioquake · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Goddard has been undergoing some organizational restructuring over years. That means office shuffling and renovations here and there. It often involves spring cleaning of all the junks piled up on top of shelves and cabinets.

    My guess? Some old geezers probably had thrown them away into a garbage bin. It's probably got dumped into some industrial dumping site in New Jersey or somewhere... that said, it's SOL to me.

    [I saved one optical disc from a garbage bin once...I'm sure it contains some IUE data, not the moon landing stuff... there is no way to read the damned thing anywhere to be sure...]

  14. ARRGH! -The greatest human accomplishment lost?! by spineboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How could this be misplaced! This is arguably one of the greatest human accomplishments ever!

    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.

    --
    ..........FULL STOP.
  15. For those who take too much "Focusin" by Cherita+Chen · · Score: 3, Informative

    Bottom line is this, we went to the Moon! If you truly believe that it was a hoax, please read this - and then for the love of FSM, get off the ADD drugs and re-evaluate...

    --
    I'm not fat, just big boned...
  16. Checklist by quokkapox · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your post advocates a conspiracy theory which is

    ( ) 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!

    --
    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
    1. Re:Checklist by kfg · · Score: 4, Funny

      ( ) paranoid
      ( ) 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

    2. Re:Checklist by quokkapox · · Score: 4, Funny

      Go ahead and track me down, I use AOL SO I AM SAFE!!!1

      --
      it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
    3. Re:Checklist by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 3, Funny
      (x) impossible to confirm
      (x) impossible to refute

      [snip]

      (x) Plenty of contradictory evidence

      (x) The items you hage checked contradict each other.

    4. Re:Checklist by meatflower · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you really used AOL that would have been all in caps, not just the last part.

    5. Re:Checklist by quokkapox · · Score: 4, Funny

      I swear to god I tried, the lameness filter prevented me from posting in all caps.

      --
      it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
    6. Re:Checklist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You seem to be implying a binary opposition exists here, specifically that being "impossible to confirm" and "impossible to refute" are contradictory to "Plenty of contradictory evidence". Your punishment: read Of Grammatology, and learn the error of your ways.

  17. I found it! by soft_guy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I found it. NASA can thank me later.

    --
    Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
    1. Re:I found it! by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Here's the real one. A little too real.

  18. Yeah, right... by Ninwa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    FTA: "But the searchers may be running out of time. The only known equipment on which the original analogue tapes can be decoded is at a Goddard centre set to close in October, raising fears that even if they are found before they deteriorate, copying them may be impossible."

    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!

    1. Re:Yeah, right... by Aufero · · Score: 5, Funny

      "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." I don't. If NASA did it, it would require five years, fifteen administrators, and fifty million dollars. The quarterly funding reviews alone (much less the reviews of the reviews) would take up more time than the project, and the funding would be proxmired halfway through to pay for a bridge to an island owned by a friend of some congressman. If they ever find the tapes they should hand them over to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which would probably have them transferred to more durable media in six months at a cost of $30,000.

    2. Re:Yeah, right... by Detritus · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The format isn't a big mystery, it's IRIG 106 if anyone cares. The problem is that as part of the continuing budget crunch at NASA, made worse by the need to scrounge money from the existing budget for new tasks like a Shuttle replacement and going to Mars, many activities and facilities are being cut or eliminated. The lab that can handle these old tapes, the Data Evaluation Lab at Goddard, has lost its funding. That means that it will be closed at the end of this fiscal year. The equipment goes into storage or is surplused. The people have to find other jobs or be laid off or retire.

      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.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  19. Let's ask James Thurber and the princess! by jkrise · · Score: 2, Funny

    Tonight is full moon actually, so it should get stuck somewhere in the trees.

    Surely NASA can arrange for some pictures in my garden?

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  20. Re:ARRGH! -The greatest human accomplishment lost? by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can still watch it and the material is everywhere, the problem is just that the original tapes were lost, which is a bummer, but not a huge bummer to me. It would've been nice to see some higher res footage of it than what we have now.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  21. the NLM and really long term storage by drDugan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was recently at a meeting in Bethesda at the NIH and heard Don Lindberg, the director of the national library of medicine talk about long term information storage.

    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.

    1. Re:the NLM and really long term storage by kfg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I focused on the Time Capsule seminar. I'm getting sick and tired of historians telling me I shouldn't be using my things, because it will destory their future historical value when:

      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 . . .less available to historians.

      KFG

    2. Re:the NLM and really long term storage by Gabrill · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because the original un-edited tapes are boring, dirty, and for the most part uninteresting. It would be like trying to watch Independance Day from the original cutting room floor. Like others have said, only public interest keeps these things funded, and only a small fraction of the public is interested in more than the first steps and the famous quote.

      --
      Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
    3. Re:the NLM and really long term storage by kfg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      He who dies having spent the most time playing with his toys wins.

      KFG

  22. Neil's gettin old by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We better hurry and send him back up to redo it.

  23. Should have been in the library of congress by hrvatska · · Score: 4, Insightful

    NASA isn't an archival institution, so it's not surprising that something like this would happen. If tapes are found, they should be turned over to an organization for which the archiving of printed and recorded material is one of its central missions.

    1. Re:Should have been in the library of congress by Inominate · · Score: 2, Informative

      They were turned over to the national archives. The archives for some reason gave them back.

  24. What about the copies? by Bushido+Hacks · · Score: 3, Funny
    Surely, ABC, CBS, and NBC must have copies of this event. What about the reporters who covered the event? Certainly, Walter Cronkite must have a copy of the event that night. I mean, he WAS their.

    On the other hand, I am so tired of all these so-called "conspiracy theorists" who are making a conspiracy out of things that were NOT a conspiracy. I mean, look at what these poser conspiracy theorists are making conspiracies out of.

    The poser conspiracy theorists will give you a bullsh*t conspiracy to keep you occupied from the real conspiracies that are occuring. Here is just some of the events they are sensationalizing into false conspiracies.
    • The moon landing
    • 9/11 (for pete sake! It was only five years ago!
    • The Davinci Code
    Now here is a list of unsolved mysteries and nefarious plots that are true conspiracies becausse no one wants to admit that they are occuring.
    • Peak Oil and Gas Prices (This one needs the most attention right now.)
    • Big Brother and soulserveilance
    • Corporate backrubs for governments/New World Order/World Trade Organization
    • Suppressed technology and cures. (Marajuana does not count!)
    • Subliminal Advertising. (for example: "Head on! Apply Directy to the Forehead" x3)
    • Extraterrestrial Life (SETI needs your help BTW! The government is cutting their funding again.)
    • The Kenedey Assassination
    • Where's Jimmy Hoffa?
    • Protecting the Earth from ourselves. (Bibles and Bombs do not mix!)
    • Occult and paranorma phenomenon
    I would recommend that the world spend a little more time tending to the second list and not the first list. But hey, people are stupid. They'd rather watch TV and let TV dictate what they should think. (I'm talking to you, Mr. I-watch-Fox-news-four-six-hours-in-the-evening.)

    Everyone else needs to put their glasses on and see the truth.
    --
    The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
    1. Re:What about the copies? by pe1chl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Surely, ABC, CBS, and NBC must have copies of this event. What about the reporters who covered the event? Certainly, Walter Cronkite must have a copy of the event that night. I mean, he WAS their.

      You should have read the article first (this time or the previous time it came on /.)

      Sure the TV stations have a copy. But it is a bad-quality copy because it is a camera shot of a monitor that showed the original downlink signal.
      What they are looking for is a tape that recorded the original downlink (not in broadcast TV format), to then convert that to digital TV using TODAY's tech, not the put-camera-in-front-of-monitor tech of 1969.

  25. New motto by mr1337 · · Score: 2, Funny

    NASA's new motto: "What? and you're perfect?"

    --
    For sale: Parachute. Used once. Never opened. Small stain.
  26. Parent post is moronic. by bmo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "And I say that with zero emotional attachment. Not believing that we went to the moon doesn't give me a membership in a tinfoil-hat brigade."

    Maybe not a tinfoil hat wearer (signifying paranoia, really) but you're a card-carrying member of the club of crazies like Erich Von Daniken, scientologists, Richard Hoagland, and creationists.

    Why do supposedly smart people believe such stupid shit?

    Indeed the posting of this as "we never went there anyway" even as a joke angers me. You'd think that after almost 40 years someone would spill the beans on the supposed secret? Well guess what, THERE WAS NO SECRET TO BE KEPT and even _if_ there was some way to bring idiots like you back in time, put you on a rocket, and land you on the moon, you'd still claim it was a movie set. There is no educating people like you because you will never admit that humanity is ever capable of doing extraordinary things. You'll attribute the Pyramids to space aliens and the Moon landings to fiction instead of the feats that people are capable of.

    It's called denying reality, assuming the worst of everyone, and willful stupidity.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:Parent post is moronic. by Trogre · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is no educating people like you because you will never admit that humanity is ever capable of doing extraordinary things.

      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.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    2. Re:Parent post is moronic. by Lord+Kano · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe not a tinfoil hat wearer (signifying paranoia, really) but you're a card-carrying member of the club of crazies like Erich Von Daniken, scientologists, Richard Hoagland, and creationists.

      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 is capable of damned near anything.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    3. Re:Parent post is moronic. by Ihlosi · · Score: 5, 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.



      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.

    4. Re:Parent post is moronic. by famebait · · Score: 4, Insightful

      that doesn't make it 100% absolute fact

      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?

      --
      sudo ergo sum
    5. Re:Parent post is moronic. by bmo · · 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."

      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

    6. Re:Parent post is moronic. by Jussi+K.+Kojootti · · Score: 4, Insightful
      You're the one being stupid. Very few things in life are absolutely certain. Sure, it doesn't affect our daily lives that much but understanding it is philosophy 101 (check out Descartes -- a master of controlled paranoia).


      I can prove with 100% certainty that dropping a hammer on top of your head will cause you to experience pain.

      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.



    7. Re:Parent post is moronic. by cshark · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Depends, I don't think all of the arguments are pathetic, but most of them don't spring from the early landings either. As far as arguments go, arguing that the first moon tapes look like guys walking around normally when you play them fast is just funny. If you've ever played them fast, you would know that thesis doesn't apply to any of the early televised moon stuff. As for what happened later... I'm going to break with Slashdot protocol here and say I don't know. Governments lose things all the time. It's not because there's an organized conspiracy. They're just top heavy and disorganized. Just think, wouldn't it be great if all conspiracy theories could be explained away that way? "Sorry, the CIA did shoot Kennedy, but it was an accident, and the operation was poorly documented."

      --

      This signature has Super Cow Powers

    8. Re:Parent post is moronic. by toidi · · Score: 2, Funny

      Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

  27. and they did not have to deal with DRM by jackjeff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just imagine the first landing on Mars, and the "lost video" message that will go with it some 100years later...

    NASA used a special high quality encoding scheme, which was not widespread in those days. In addtition it was protected by a DRM made by company "x", which went bankrupt some 30 years ago... well we have the file, maybe we could even reverse engineer the DRM, but it's illegal because of DMCA.... Sorry dudes, the recording are lost forever because we need to protect the copyright holder rights :)

  28. I know where it is by Centurix · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's the one marked Buzz Aldrin: 1956 Wedding Tape.

    He'll never forget taping over that one...

    --
    Task Mangler
  29. I found the lost video here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUkwr-KXa98 Looks like the real deal. ;)

  30. Copy to new media by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously, that's the great part of digital media and what give it longevity. You don't make things last by trying to put them in a format that will last forever and tuck that away, you just copy them to new formats perodicly. CD or DVD will work fine for now. Copy them to one of those, make 4 copies. Put 2 copies each in two seperate locations, maybe two in a bank safe deposit box, two at home. Then, just remember to refresh the backup. I'd do it a minimum of once every 5 years, or when you get a new, better storage technology, whichever comes first. Make sure to hand that off to your children, and so on. Then, no matter how far in the future it is, the data will still be there.

    I mean in reality, the CDs would probalby last many decades when stored in a climate controlled dark place, like a bank, but that's not the real problem. The problem will be in 100 years, CD-ROMs will be something for antique collectors or data recovery shops only. Everyone else will be on some format probalby yet to be developed. So not only does your refresh make sure the media doesn't die, it also makes sure it's current technology.

    Same thing with file formats. Who knows how long those will last, but you can update them, as necessary. If DV falls out of favour for some new video techonology, you can recode your videos to that, no problem. There will be plenty of time when both formats are widely available. However 100 years down the road, it might be a real feat to find software that understands DV.

    That's the way to do it, if this is something you really care about. We aren't talking a lot of labour here, and we aren't talking something you need to do often.

    I have data on my harddrive from 15 years ago, it's just been copied and recopied, old papers I wrote. They just get copied to a new drive when I get one, and to my backup drives. When a new version of Office comes out, I convert them to the new file format. In doing this, I'm likely to never lose them.

    Just use the advantages of the medium. Digital makes perfect copies, the copies are cheap, they are high density, and you can translate from one format to another. That means you solve the permenance problem by recoping and the destruction problem by having multiple copies in different locations.

  31. A BETTER Moon Landing by bishop186 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's cool. George Lucas took 'em -- he's going to add the things that he couldn't add the first time because of budget constraints. They'll resurface in a couple years complete with better special effects and a new ending where the Ewoks dance with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren.

  32. A lot of it by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Informative

    is here

  33. Re:That's because we probably didn't. by tverbeek · · Score: 2

    Sorry, dude, but if all the evidence convinces you that it was faked, you either are certifiably paranoid, or you're just too stupid to understand it.

    And I say that with zero emotional attachment.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  34. Re:That's because we probably didn't. by Archibald+Buttle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are having a laugh, right, and trolling us?

    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.

  35. Oh Yes! by cluckshot · · 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!

    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.

    --
    Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
    1. Re:Oh Yes! by jridley · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If they want those records to last 100 years, they'd better take care of them, not just put them in a box. In 100 years the tapes will be dust or goo unless copied to new media.

    2. Re:Oh Yes! by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful
      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.

      What seems to have gone one is that either you have ingested a large quantity of drugs - or you have ingested a massive quantity of drugs.
       
       
      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.
      Contained in these records are films, data stores, and all of the technical documents for operation of the Apollo System.

      Then how precisely do I have over a 5 gig of Apollo era documents, all downloaded from NASA servers, residing on my hard drive? Anyone can view these by going to Google Groups, locating the group sci.space.history, and searching on 'PDF Rusty'. (Rusty is a regular poster to that group with an uncanny ability to locate stuff NASA has put on the web. It's all publically available, but the search system is somewhat slow, and with litterally tens of thousands of documents in the results that have to be slogged through.)
       
       
      The description of some details here is slightly modified so as to keep some nasty people off the trail and to protect the records.

      Yes - so modified as to no longer have any connection with reality.
  36. Don't worry! by aussie_a · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't worry, I've found the original Moon film on ebay!

    I knew NASA's funding was desperate, but I didn't know it was that desperate!

  37. it would not surprise me by v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    if these tapes have been in some very rich person's "personal museum" for the last several years, the result of a quiet and large payoff to someone that had access to the archives. Things like this don't just "disappear", they "grow legs".

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  38. Did we land? Look for yourself by ThosLives · · Score: 2, Informative

    The moon has an orbital radius of 384,400 km. The radius of Earth is 6370 km. If you want to try and see the lander bits we left, they are probably on the scale of 2 meters.

    From the surface of Earth: 2 meters at a distance of 378,030 km subtend an angle of 5.29 x 10^-9 radians. The angular resolution of the human eye is about 1/60 of a degree, or 2.91 x 10^-4 radians.

    So, just build yourself a telescope with a 55000X magnification and you should be all set.

    --
    "There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
  39. yeah by majortom1981 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    WHy is everybody saying the moon landing was fake? Here at the cradle of aviation museum we have a moon lander straight from gumman that was supposed to land on the moon but was canceled. This wouldnt even be there if the program was fake. Here at the Library that I work at one of our patrons was one of the project jheads at grumman for the moon landers. This is not fake. I have living proof here that its not. Why do people keep mentioning this?

  40. They better not mess up... by BlackCobra43 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Buzz shot first.

    --
    I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
  41. Re:100 year format - barcode? by meburke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Funny thing: An old colleague of mine recently recovered some old research data from punched plastic tape (coated paper, actually) that we used to input the CDC-160G back in the mid-60's. Barcoding has an even higher reliability, and can be coded for error correction. It's probably not as space-efficient as what we have now, but my mom has tape measures from the early 1800's that are still readable. Maybe we should print the data in barcode on fabric?

    --
    "The mind works quicker than you think!"
  42. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  43. NASA is starving by Catbeller · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I recall visiting the Space Center in 1996. What struck me most was the delapidation. The buildings were 1966 vintage; rot and decay was everywhere. It looked like a trailer park in its last days.

    NASA has been villified for decades for being bloated and wasteful. Nice try, space haters, but they have been performing wonders on pennies for decades. They probably don't have the money to manage old film inventory or have redundant security features.

    And a HUGE, HUGE problem is that the people who know where everything is were canned for budgetary reasons. They have little institutional memory. (a miniature model of the same problem which afflicts all our institions as they trim the "fat" and lose their history as the old timers go out the door, pensionless.)

  44. Re:That's because we probably didn't. by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Not believing that we went to the moon doesn't give me a membership in a tinfoil-hat brigade."

    Back up a sec, this dude may have a point. The reason that the negative attitude exists for people who believe the moon landing is faked is because the rationale that has been publicized for this is ... ignorant ... at best. A few years ago, Fox showed some 'documentary' that claimed that there might be evidence the moon landing was a hoax. Every single point of the 'evidence' was EASILY refutable. For example: They claimed that the astronauts were too brightly lit and that the extra light must have come from studio lighting. They even had a 'professional photographer' come on the show and say that it was impossible for that sort of lighting to occur. This 'professional photographer' was completely ignoring the fact that light bounces, even on the moon.

    You'd have to be pretty ignorant to buy in to their logic. That's why, if you just announce that you don't believe it happened, it is generally assumed (whether it is right or wrong, sorry.) that you are part of this little group. If you are simply saying "I wasn't there, so I cannot say for certain", then I think that's a different story. I can sympathize with that. I wasn't even alive when the moon landing happened. In that respect, I cannot actually say it did. Fair enough.

    I think the mods were a little too quick on the trigger with modding down your post. You are right that simply not being 100% certain that the moon landing happened doesn't mean you're a ... pardon the expression ... looney. But in the future, I'd recommend that you clarify your views. Too much attention has already been paid to people who have bastardized science to prove their over-zealous point.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  45. make some more by solfood · · Score: 2, Funny

    can't they just make some new films? They probably still have the old sets and costumes.

  46. Hasn't it all been loaded to Google Video? by rholland356 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would have thought all the video recordings from the moon missions would have been loaded to Google Video by now. Perhaps NASA was in the process of preparing the files for upload when they discovered they don't actually have the files...

    Actually, this event illustrates the conundrum that we are all presented with in this digital age. In the analog age we were accustomed to the loss of old data--it really had little value to the general population. Sure, we had a box of photos of vacations and relatives and such, a wedding album, maybe a voice recording or super-8 film. We relied on historians to do the digging and to present the past to us. People lived shorter lives and when they died they didn't leave behind much data that couldn't be easily divvied up among survivors--photos, keepsakes, mementos.

    That's all changed, and with the boomers entering the end game, habits will change.

    Today we can easily capture and keep quite a lot of data in a tiny area. It may not be evident just how many gems are saved on the deceased's computers, or portable devices, and how much time will it take to sift through it? It's not a group activity where you can sit with mourners around a box of photos, dig them out and tell stories as you hand them around.

    Do we just shut off or reformat and not bother to look? Maybe it becomes a task assigned to one trusted person through a will--to "sift throught the data, share the gems and destroy the porn", before reformatting the system.
    Maybe it falls to the elderly to email out to others the digital items they treasure, so that the burden is spread around.

    So, I keep an old scsi hard disk from an early Mac because I think that disk has a voice recording I captured of my daughter. Some day I want to mine that disk and recover that sound. The physical disk is of no value to others as it sits collecting dust, and is always at risk of being thrown out.

    I think the experience at NASA is probably repeated among us all quite frequently.

  47. This is funny. by MaWeiTao · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What I find funny about the faked lunar landing conspiracies is that the arguments are all based what would have been glaring oversights on NASA's part.

    So I'm supposed to believe that these guys were extremely meticulous in recreating a lunar environment they'd never even experienced, but were so inept they didn't notice inconsistent photos, improper lighting and various other problems.

    It just goes to show that regardless of how overwhelming the evidence may be people will go right on believing whatever they want.