Summer at NASA Headquarters:

Seit einem Jahr wird aktiv nach dem Original-Film von der ersten Mondlandung gesucht.
Gesichtet hat man ihn aber schon länger nicht. Oh, rats! ;-)


THE WASHINGTON POST
Tape of 1st Moon Landing Missing
Reuters
Tuesday, August 15, 2006; Page A02

The government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said yesterday.

Armstrong's moon walk, seen by millions of television viewers on July 20, 1969, is among the transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.

"We haven't seen them for quite a while. We've been looking for over a year, and they haven't turned up," Hautaloma said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...6081400998.html

Dear Reader,

da scheint die Washington Post, entgegen ihrer Art, mal eine alte Story als neu zu verkaufen.

Fast alles, was in der Story steht, wurde bereits im Mai publiziert.

Hier kann man den Bericht von John M. Sarkissian lesen, der die seit Jahren laufende Suche nach den Bändern leitet; der Bericht stammt vom 21. Mai 2006. Hier die Titelseite und die Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse (Hervorhebungen von mir):

The Search for the Apollo 11 SSTV Tapes
John M. Sarkissian
Operations Scientist
CSIRO Parkes Observatory
21 May 2006
Contact Details:
John.Sarkissian@csiro.au
Tel: +61 2 68611700
Fax: +61 2 68611730
CSIRO Parkes Observatory
PO Box 276
Parkes. NSW. 2870.
Australia.

• In July 1969, three tracking stations received the TV signals of the historic Apollo 11 EVA.
They were the DSN 64 metre antenna at Goldstone, California, the MSFN 26 metre antenna
at Honeysuckle Creek, Australia, and the 64 metre CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope in
Australia.
• The TV signals transmitted from the Moon were high quality Slow-Scan TV (SSTV).
• When received on Earth, they were scan-converted to the commercial TV standards before
being broadcast to the public at large.
• The scan-converted TV signals, from each of the three stations, were then relayed via
landline, microwave relays and geostationary satellite to Houston before being released to
the TV networks for general broadcast.
• The signal, as sent from the Moon, was initially degraded by the scan-conversion process,
producing lower resolution images and introducing additional signal noise. Also, the
transmission of the scan-converted TV to Houston caused additional signal degradation.
This lower quality TV is currently all that is available of the Apollo 11 EVA.
• The SSTV was of superior quality to the scan-converted pictures viewed by the world.
• As the raw SSTV signals were received at the three tracking stations, they were recorded
onto 1-inch magnetic data tapes. Following the EVA, procedures required that these tapes be
shipped to the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).
• In 1970, the tapes were placed in the US National Archives in Accession #69A4099. By
1984, all but two of the over 700 boxes of Apollo era magnetic tapes placed in the
Accession, were removed and returned to the GSFC for permanent retention. These tapes
are now missing.
• These missing data tapes include the raw Apollo 11 SSTV tapes. For the past several years,
a search for these tapes has been undertaken by several former Apollo 11 personnel. To
date, no Apollo 11 SSTV tapes have been found.
• When the tapes are found, it is hoped to recover the original, high quality SSTV of the first
lunar EVA and to release it to the public for the first time.
• The Data Evaluation Lab (DEL) at the Goddard Space Flight Center is the only known place
that has the equipment and expertise to playback the tapes and to recover the data.
• The DEL is slated for closure in October 2006.
• Efforts are underway to assure the future of the DEL (the critical hardware located in the
DEL that would be required for tape evaluation and processing is being removed and
retained through the efforts of the former Apollo engineers).
• It is vital that the DEL (or some elements of it) remain open and functional, otherwise none
of the Apollo data tapes can ever be played back and the historic information recovered.
• This report details the reasons why the search for the tapes was undertaken, how much better
the SSTV was to the scan-converted TV and the progress of the search to date.