Lost Moon landing tapes discovered

[razors edge]

For years 'lost' tapes recording data from the Apollo 11 Moon landing have been stored underneath the seats of Australian physics students. A recent search has uncovered them.

They were nearly thrown out with the rubbish. But a last minute search instead has scientists in Western Australia dusting off several boxes of 'lost' NASA tapes which record surface conditions on the Moon just after Neil Armstrong stepped into space history on 21 July 1969.

After addressing Earth, the American astronaut set up a package of scientific instruments, including a dust detector designed by an Australian physicist. The data collected by the detector was sent back to ground stations on Earth and recorded on magnetic tapes - copies of which are as rare as the 'misplaced' original video footage of the 1969 touchdown.

Last week, up to 100 tapes, clearly marked "NASA Manned Space Center", turned up after a search in a dusty basement of a physics lecture hall at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. One of the old tapes has been sent to the American space agency to see whether it can be deciphered and 'stripped' of any important data which may have survived the ravages of time.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/818

[InvisibleTouch]

1. How very cool! n/t

[Bucky]

2. Damn. I thought it was gonna be a video of them setting up the fake moon set.

[Xenotime]

4. You know they so faked it.

[Bucky]

7. Wouldn't surprise me if the Aussies were behind it all, prob'ly Mel's dad, too.

If I was gonna fake a moon set, I'd go to Australia, too. It's practically another world down there, and with gravity all messed up from their being upside down (check out a globe sometime... it's true!) it's probably easy for them to fake the low gravity they want you to believe there is on the so-called "moon".

[shain from kane]

6. Videotape of Capricorn One. n/t

[razors edge]

9. Is that the one with OJ?

where he tells his companions he wants the knife, since he would shoot himself if he took the gun.

[shain from kane]

10. From IMDB.com --- (OJ as Cmdr. John Walker) ---

Charles Brubaker: John, you take the flint. Peter and I will split up the matches. Anybody want the gun?
Lt. Col Peter Willis: I'd shoot my foot.
Cmdr. John Walker: I'd shoot his foot.


Who's got the keys to the Bronco?

[high density]

3. Unfortunately these tapes are probably mostly useless now

Time really is not kind to magnetic media.

[razors edge]

5. Here's to hoping for the best. n/t

[MikeDuffy]

8. Very well may take extra sensitive playback head equipment

i.e. the normal playback equipment may not be sensitive enough -- but if it is really valuable data...