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NASA Releases Thousands of Hours of Apollo 11 Mission Audio (thehill.com)

Posted by msmash on from the for-the-record dept.

NASA and the University of Texas have teamed up to digitize 19,000 hours of recordings from the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first two people on the moon. From a report: The audio was uploaded to the Internet Archive, a nonprofit website that hosts digitized versions of cultural artifacts. "One of the things that comes across is that each of the people working for NASA is proud of what they do. They were always working collaboratively," John Hansen, a speech researcher at the university and principal investigator for the project, told NBC News.

15 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Moon Hoaxers? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now that we have pictures of moon buggy tracks and the gear left behind on the moon...

    https://www.nasa.gov/mission_p...

    ...as well as things like this newly-released thousands-of-hours of audio, do any of the moon hoaxers start to lose their resolve?

    Or to them, is it still just part of a huge ongoing conspiracy involving thousands of men and women that continues to live on nearly 50 years later?

    1. Re:Moon Hoaxers? by olsmeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When you're certain something is true, facts are no obstacle. It's trivial to rewrite the narrative to work around such annoyances as proof and evidence.

    2. Re:Moon Hoaxers? by Kjella · · Score: 2

      ...as well as things like this newly-released thousands-of-hours of audio, do any of the moon hoaxers start to lose their resolve?

      No. The harder someone tries to prove to a conspiracy theorist that he's wrong, the more desperate they are because the cover-up is not working. For example the Nazis wanted order and kept tons of records on the Holocaust, but if you talk to a Holocaust denier the extensive and detailed evidence is proof that it's fake because if it was real it'd be way more fragmented and incomplete. The only way it could be so comprehensive is if there was a bunch of Jews manufacturing it, basically the compelling evidence against the conspiracy becomes part of the conspiracy. I think 19000 hours of radio chatter goes in the same category, the only way you have all this is because it's made up. But the "truthers" see through your ploy...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  2. Is there a key to understanding the tapes? by mykepredko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have no idea how this works. If I look at the Official Apollo 11 timeline (https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_11i_Timeline.htm), the countdown started on July 14th and splashdown was on July 24th. I can be generous and say that the mission took 11 days (264 hours). According to TFA, there were 30 tracks of data (which yields 7,920 hours of audio). This is only 1/3 of the total - where does the 19k hours come in?

    Secondly, how do you know which tape to look for what? For example, I'd love to hear the rendezvous of the conversation of the CM and the ascent module during docking after launching from the moon but I have no idea where to look in terms of time/track.

    I did do a search, but couldn't find any information on this or a key to understand the tapes. Anybody have any ideas?

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:Is there a key to understanding the tapes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The article says 170 tapes with 30 tracks, it does not say how long any of them are or that they were only recording 30 tracks at one time. 5,100 tracks is all it gives you. The NASA release mentions these are "surviving tapes" and also says there is a lot more audio that hasn't been digitized. It also hints at transcriptions, perhaps coming to the Explore Apollo site at some point.

      The labels have things like "Flight Director (L)" and "Flight Director (R)" taking up two tracks on a tape. Some of the ones I have opened up sound like they are data (the labels are the same for every tape and do not match the contents). I also found one with some folks that sound Australian (maybe) troubleshooting something.

      I imagine "T880" is a tape label (I get 24 audio tracks for that one), followed by which Historical Recorder was used and potentially which reel on the recorder (U and L look a lot like Upper/Lower to me), then the channel. Unsure on the timestamp, except it appears to be sequential (T889 has channel 17 from 01-42-10_10-12-10 and 10-12-10_18-21-28, but there is silence in the first and talking in the second).

    2. Re:Is there a key to understanding the tapes? by Megane · · Score: 2

      That "data" recording sure sounds like telemetry. It even seems to have some regular structure to it that you would expect from telemetry. Looking at the waveform, it's a 1KHz carrier with amplitude modulation. Out of every 10 waves, either 2, 5, or 8 of them are higher amplitude, so it's a 100 baud signal. The 8-wave pulses may be framing, because they are every tenth burst, but sometimes the first of the other 9 bursts is also 8 waves.

      The problem is that if it is telemetry, it may be impossible to determine what the data means without knowing what produced it. It is also likely that even then, the base value and scale can't be determined without finding original documentation. As an example, here is what the AMSAT 7 Oscar telemetry looked like, and that apparently even used ASCII to encode individual characters. It would be impossible to determine those equations, much less what each value represents, without having the original documentation.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  3. The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

    Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

    Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

    Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

    1. Re:The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nice try, but it just isn't possible to write Satire anymore. This sounds just like Fox News.

    2. Re:The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth by mark-t · · Score: 2

      Nice illustration of Poe's Law

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  4. Re:19,000 hours? does not compute by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3, Informative

    I wonder where the rest of it is coming from.

    From -

    https://www.sciencealert.com/n...

    The hours and hours of audio encompasses every single communication between the astronauts, mission control and back-room support staff during the entire mission.

  5. More mission recordings when? by PPH · · Score: 2

    I want to hear the Apollo 18 tapes.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  6. Re:This is good and all ... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 2

    See, that comedy FAQ proves flat-earthers don't actually believe this nonsense are trolling us for fun.

    Take circumnavigation. If you're really circling a pie plate like they suggest with that picture, it would take longer at the edge and than would at the middle.

    Plainly, on earth it doesn't. Assuming the same velocity, it's much quicker to circle the 60th parallel than it is the equator. Easily proven by getting in a plane.

  7. More approachable version by Brett+Buck · · Score: 3, Informative

    Try here:

    https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/

    and here:

    https://history.nasa.gov/afj/

          where they have listened extensively to many of the tapes, and transcribed and added explanations. If you want to know what was going on live, that is the place to start.

  8. Re:This is good and all ... by jwhyche · · Score: 2

    Gosh, you moon-hoaxers are almost as bad as flat-earthers.

    Screw the moon-hoaxer idiots. Lets just get to the part where the astronauts meet the aliens....

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  9. The critical fucking moon landing moments by TreeDork · · Score: 2

    The critical two minutes of recording are already published here on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?...