Houston, We Have a Problem: Original Moon Walk Footage Erased
Nasa likely taped over its only high resolution images of the first moon landing with electronic data from a satellite
It was mankind's crowning achievement, with millions around the world glued to their television sets as astronaut Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the surface of the moon 40 years ago.
But in the scientific equivalent of recording an old episode of EastEnders over the prized video of your daughter's wedding day, it has emerged that Nasa likely taped over its only high resolution images of the first moon walk with some electronic data from a satellite.
It means that the familiar grainy and ghosting images of Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" are all that remain from the mission, though as a consolation prize the space agency has managed to digitally remaster the footage into new broadcast-quality pictures that it released today.
"I don't think anyone in the Nasa organization did anything wrong. It slipped through the cracks, and nobody's happy about it," said Dick Nafzger, one of the last Apollo-era video engineers still working for the agency at Maryland's Goddard Space Flight Center.
The findings follow an exhaustive four-year search through archives stored in dusty basements for the so-called "lost tapes" from the Apollo 11 mission.
Nasa believed they might contain electronic data that could be converted into much sharper pictures of the landing than those broadcast on the day, which were taken by a TV camera pointed at a giant wall monitor at mission control in Houston - effectively a copy of a copy.
But agency officials have concluded that the data was inadvertently erased when hundreds of thousands of boxes of magnetic tapes were recycled in the 1970s and 80s to record the electronic output from a burgeoning number of satellites in orbit.
"These satellites were suddenly using tapes seven days a week, 24 hours a day," Stan Lebar, the designer of the original lunar camera, told America's National Public Radio.
"So I don't believe that the tapes exist today at all. It was a hard thing to accept. But there was just an overwhelming amount of evidence that led us to believe that they just don't exist anymore. And you have to accept reality."
But in the scientific equivalent of recording an old episode of EastEnders over the prized video of your daughter's wedding day, it has emerged that Nasa likely taped over its only high resolution images of the first moon walk with some electronic data from a satellite.
It means that the familiar grainy and ghosting images of Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" are all that remain from the mission, though as a consolation prize the space agency has managed to digitally remaster the footage into new broadcast-quality pictures that it released today.
"I don't think anyone in the Nasa organization did anything wrong. It slipped through the cracks, and nobody's happy about it," said Dick Nafzger, one of the last Apollo-era video engineers still working for the agency at Maryland's Goddard Space Flight Center.
The findings follow an exhaustive four-year search through archives stored in dusty basements for the so-called "lost tapes" from the Apollo 11 mission.
Nasa believed they might contain electronic data that could be converted into much sharper pictures of the landing than those broadcast on the day, which were taken by a TV camera pointed at a giant wall monitor at mission control in Houston - effectively a copy of a copy.
But agency officials have concluded that the data was inadvertently erased when hundreds of thousands of boxes of magnetic tapes were recycled in the 1970s and 80s to record the electronic output from a burgeoning number of satellites in orbit.
"These satellites were suddenly using tapes seven days a week, 24 hours a day," Stan Lebar, the designer of the original lunar camera, told America's National Public Radio.
"So I don't believe that the tapes exist today at all. It was a hard thing to accept. But there was just an overwhelming amount of evidence that led us to believe that they just don't exist anymore. And you have to accept reality."
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