Imagine The Late Charges

Apparently somebody over at NASA checked out with the original video tapes of the Apollo's 11 moon landing. The images of the landing broadcast live to the world back in 1969 were essentially the stripped down version of the original tapes. There are lots of stories on this, but I had to go with this version from Britian's Daily Telegraph, " One giant cock-up for mankind."

"What was broadcast to the world was nowhere near as good as what was received," said John Sarkissian, of the CSIRO Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, one of the three tracking stations that taped the original footage before sending it on to Houston in converted form.

Those tapes, although nowhere near the standard of normal television transmissions, would still be of far better quality than the video we have today, especially if processed using modern digital techniques.

But rather than being prized as vital recordings, Nasa simply filed them away. And as personnel retired or died, the location of the tapes was forgotten.

No wonder they can't keep ice chunks from raining down on the space shuttle.