Talk:Apollo 11 missing tapes

old talk
That article I added said that the tapes were found: "Recently, NASA managers scrambled to respond to reports that the agency had lost the original tapes of the historic 1969 moon landing, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The tapes eventually were found." Is the article wrong? Bubba73 (talk), 04:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The latest article added has some innacuracies. That the tapes were lost was something acknowledged by NASA itself, this is not an urban myth. On the other hand this new reference just confirms that that NASA is still looking and hopes the tapes will have the info they are looking for.(NASA hopes archives have map to moon)--tequendamia 04:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The fourth paragraph from the end of the article in the link says that the tapes were found. Is that wrong?  Bubba73 (talk), 04:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Somebody can email John Sarkissian and find out.--tequendamia 04:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I emailed him and the author of the article. The author of the article says that it was some other tapes that were found, and he got confused.  So it wasn't the missing SSTV tapes.  Bubba73 (talk), 14:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There you are! There is always people in the media who are confused about things or who are trying to confuse everyone.--tequendamia 00:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A new pair of eyes (mine) was also misled by the referenced article. A close reading reveals that the tapes found in Perth are not thought to contain the slow scan video.  So, to avoid misleading more Wiki readers, I clarified the description of the discovery.  75.100.81.4 jmatxx 18:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It is still not clear to me. The article talks about EASEP data.  The slow-scan TV signal was recorded on the same tapes as the telemetry from the lunar module.  If these tapes are EASEP data only, then they probably don't have the TV.  If they also contain telemetry from the LM then they should contain the TV.  So I hope we know soon.  Bubba73 (talk), 20:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations also talks about this. I just updated it over there.  Bubba73 (talk), 21:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Any news on this? It seems like NASA is getting away with it. Did they close Goddard? Have the tapes turned up? Is anyone still looking? Gravitor 21:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The silence is deafening. Some things you don't want to know, eh? Gravitor 19:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well what exactly is on the telemetry that isn't available on the easily and widely accesible videotape? The search is ongoing. The hope is that the SSTV tapes will yield a higher quality picture than the scan converted material. There will be no high resolution wonders and there will be no additional material of the EVA as it ALL EXISTS, albeit scan-converted on video that anyone can access. The SSTV will hopefully yield a slightly clearer picture with better contrast ratio. How much better resolution can a 320 tape give anyway? The Conspiracy Theorists only became aware of the tapes and their potential usefulness AFTER retired engineers thought it might be a good idea to see what is on the tapes (thereby starting their search) and made their search official some time after that. The CTs like to imagine there is a wealth of additional material on these tapes; which itself is a completely false allegation. Curiously the thought of checking the 16mm film which has around 6 times more resolution that the video doesn't seem to enter their logical reasoning. Surely that format would reveal all the mysteries which 320 lines of video wouldn't, right? Dstevenb (talk) 09:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Confusing. Be clear as to which tapes are missing.
I found this article to be a bit confusing (yes I know that it is still not much more than a stub). In essesnce, there are probably millions of "data tapes" related to the Apollo missions, and it is not clear if this refers to all of them, or just the Apollo 11 footage. I think that it would be best to give each type of tape its own section.

As an example of why this should be better categorized, consider the following story: I was involved with re-analyzing some data that was obtained from an experiment on one of the Apollo CSMs. However, back in those days, the archiving requirements were not the same as they are today (there was no PDS). Now, with this experiment, the PI lost over the years about 10% of the tapes containing data from this experiment. There is also about two years of data from the ALSEP experiment that was never archived. Should these example be in this article? I say NO, because they are non-notable. Lunokhod 10:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This article should reflect the best knowledge available about the disposition of all the tapes. It's very unclear right now which ones are missing, and what the standards for retention even are. It's interesting that you seem to portray 10% loss as normal - it would be fascinating to know if that standard of care was normal across the whole program. Gravitor 16:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know what is happening with the tapes? The machines? Gravitor 04:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

....... Speaking about tapes and not mentioning how many - is that the standard? And by the way, not only film tapes were lsot, but also fotos and fotofilm. It ist an information relating to the issue of the article. In the 80s it was told in oficial media, that "NASA didnt have enough money for keeping them all in archive".. Later was told, for that reason they did put them into national archive, and there it was lost. And never found! If so many thinks are getting lost, there is the qwestion if anyone was treatened somehow for that foulish working? Plans for the Saturn 5 and its engine inclusive, of cource "lost". No money to keep them all. 5.28.113.229 (talk) 02:43, 24 December 2017 (UTC)


 * They are lost so we don't know exactly how many were lost. I think they were recording at Goldstone in California and in Australia, which sent the tapes to NASA.  The recording started before the first steps on the Moon and went on past when they reentered the LM.  That was over 2-1/2 hours.  I think that each tape held 30 minutes but they overlapped them so nothing would be lost changing reels of tape.  So there were probably around seven or eight tapes recorded at each site.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:04, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

tapes found
John Sarkissian told me in February this year that tapes of the first moonwalk had been found, and that Parkes observatory were releasing them on the 2009 anniversary of the moon landings. I can't really put it in the article, but expect some nice footage. I'm excited! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.233.120 (talk) 11:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The common misconception is that the footage on the missing tapes is unseen material. All the coverage of the EVA has been available to anyone since it occured in July 1969. For posterity is was archived on film (kinescope) recordings from the scan converted video. While the raw telemetry tapes would yield the best quality footage of the moonwalk, it would not contain anything that hasn't been seen before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.16.163.243 (talk • contribs)


 * I thought the article made it clear that it was the same video that is available, but could be converted into higher quality. BTW, I contacted John Sarkissian and he did not confirm that the tapes have been found.  Bubba73 (talk), 06:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Bad Astronomy has this down as a hoax. Until such footage surfaces publicly it's not the brief of this page or encyclopedia to host such claims. MartinSFSA (talk) 20:27, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I read up on this a few years ago. The SSTV signal beamed from the moon to Australia wasn't all that sharp to begin but got a big further knock down in quality when it was converted for transmission on the television networks, owing to the crummy conversion gear they had back then, retransmission by satellite and other woes. Decades later, when someone remembered that the telemetry tapes held the original analog data which could nowadays be easily and very cheaply made into faithfully alike video files, which would indeed look a lot clearer (but still be low resolution and foggy), nobody could find the data tapes. The tapes may have been degaussed and re-used (the reels of that kind of tape were amazingly expensive back then), or snatched as keepsakes from a junk pile in the 1970s, then lost when whoever did that died or whatever, what happened to them is unknown. My understanding is, they felt lucky the video hook up came through at all and notions of video quality were not like those today. At the time of Apollo 11, video tape recorders were the size of an oven an cost as much as a fairly big house. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is the topic of this article. And in 1969 it was amazing to see any TV program from the Moon!  Bubba73 (talk), 22:23, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I also contacted John Sarkissian and again he did not say they had been found, but nor did he say they hadn't when asked. However I've put the newspaper article back in as it appears that NASA is indeed releasing improved footage this week, check out the new press release. PJDelaney (talk) 20:40, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Truth be told, it doesn't sound at all like they found the missing SS telemetery, but rather, best available broadcast-format copies of the lunar excursion hints that someone rooted about for the cleanest post-conversion broadcast video tapes they could get their hands on, from sundry network and TV archives, ran it all through some enhancement software, tweaked and fussed over things a lot and wound up with something that looks a bit cleaner. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the Video at the Daily Express must be a preview of the improvement. On the other video I've seen, you can't see details in the ground like you can in this video.  Bubba73 (talk), 00:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I take that back. This video seems to be of the same quality of that commonly available.  Bubba73 (talk), 01:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I suspect that the new video is from tape recorded in Sydney, AU after the scan conversion, see this. That would eliminate noise introduced by the transmission around the world, plus the PDF mentions combining three frames into one to reduce noise. Bubba73 (talk), 02:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * That videotape seems to have been recorded in Houston, not Sydney, but I still suspect that is it. I may be wrong though.  Bubba73 (talk), 04:02, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

After a three year search NASA indeed says the tapes were likely erased and used again, the SSTV telemetry lost, but they've gathered the clearest post-conversion broadcast copies they could find and tweaked them. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

To the people saying they contacted John, I get the impression it was quite under wraps, and he probably shouldn't have told the people he did, so I'm not surprised he declined to confirm anything. Anyhow, recent news articles mention footage from Parkes so I'm guessing that's what I heard about. Though of course the anti NASA media are focusing on the tapes being lost in the first place (sigh) - hard to get any real news out of them. 220.253.43.86 (talk) 12:24, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is probably the case. He replied to me something like "what did you hear?" but neither confirmed nor denied it.  Bubba73 (if you can read this you can go to my talk page), 18:12, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * They canny botched it (losing the SSTV recordings), hence the skirting. Never mind each of those (blank) tape reels cost as much as a small car back then, the value was in the content and they lost it. Since most commentators know aught about late 1960s video costs and standards, it's a mess. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:16, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * This says $90 to $100 per tape at the time. Bubba73 (if u cn rd ths u cn go to my talk page), 20:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Hint: WP:V is not truth. It sounds low to me, though $100 in 1969 would be about $600 today. Multiply that by thousands of tapes and it's still a lot of money. If the tapes were only $100 each back in the day, they botched even more than I thought. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:22, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The missing tapes were data tapes, not video tapes. I think they said that there were over 400,000 of them.  They didn't look ahead to the possibility of a better conversion in the future.  Bubba73 (if u cn rd ths u cn go to my talk page), 20:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The missing tapes carried the original analog video along with lots of data, of the first human landing on the moon, which they say are now lost. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm sorry they are missing too, but did you see the news conference? The SSTV was one track of 14 on the data tapes.  It was recorded at the tracking station so if something else went wrong along the line they could replay that to broadcast to the world.  After the live broadcast went OK and tapes and kinescopes of it were made, someone probably figured that the SSTV wasn't that important.  Someone in the project signed off that they no longer needed the content of the tapes.  Bubba73 (if u cn rd ths u cn go to my talk page), 20:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems they canny botched it. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I'm an American, so I don't know what "canny" means in that context. But I think the cost figure is probably right. I bought an open reel recorder in 1969. Top quality audio recording tape, 1800' by 1/4" was about $5. These tapes were 5 times as long and 4 times as wide.  So if they were the same per square inch, that would be $100.  Bubba73 (if u cn rd ths u cn go to my talk page), 21:09, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think the reels were that cheap, but if they were, I'd say it makes this botch look very much the worse. They spent billions on the missions and then erased the data tapes. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:32, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

WHAT original slow-scan moonlanding tapes?
Is Sarkissian's PDF the only source that says the 320/10 video tapes existed? What earlier sources are there that detail the existence of 320/10 video and/or telemetry tapes? Who made them? Where? When did they get shipped to Goddard? What plans were announced for them back then, if any? Sources I've seen say that the tapes would have lasted 15 minutes each (at 120ips) so there would've been over 40 of them. Twang (talk) 09:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC)


 * That isn't the only source. NASA talked about it (see the "NASA news conference" section and its references).  They were made by the tracking station in Austraila and shipped to (I think) Goddard.  They must have been shipped shortly after being made.  You are right about the number of tapes, there were 45 of them.  Bubba73 (talk), 14:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories
I removed the above link from the "See also" section because that subject is "not really related to this issue."

User:Gwen Gale restored it saying "topic is related for some readers".

What does that mean? --TS 23:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It means some readers mistakenly think that the missing data tapes have something to do with a hoax. The link to Apollo Moon Landing hoax conspiracy theories will help them understand their mistake. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:04, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it should be there too because some people take the missing tape as evidence of a hoax. Bubba73 (talk), 00:11, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * "Some people" doesn't mean anything to me. Do we have a reliable source saying the conspiracy theorists associate this missing tape with their theories?  It seems a bit far-fetched, since this incident of missing tapes only pertains to a single mission; five other missions landed on the moon and (needless to say) telemetry from some of the circumlunar missions was picked up by third parties such as Kettering Grammar School. I don't expect conspiracy theorists to make a lot of sense, but it seems pointless to associate this affair with their theories of a hoax. --TS 01:23, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a blog, so it doesn't count as a RS. Bubba73 (talk), 02:11, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I suspect that the "missing tape" saga may be too young as an event to have reached reliable sources as a component of the conspiracy theories. This is one of the reasons I am considering removing references to the tape from the hoax theory article--the sources available so far are only blogs and the like. --TS 02:15, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It may be, but if you look in the archives of the talk of the main program, hoax beleivers were bringing it up a couple of years ago. But just putting a link under "see also" doesn't require a reliable source.  I'm pretty sure that the "missing tapes" article was spun off of the main article.  Bubba73 (talk), 02:37, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * YouTube isn't a reliable source, but this shows what they are saying. Bubba73 (talk), 02:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It is from this video. Bubba73 (talk), 05:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Could the tapes be really read today?
In the book

Elliotte Rusty Harold, W. Scott Means; XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition; O'Reilly; 2004; ISBN 978-0-596-00764-5 in chapter 1. Introducing XML, section Portable Data

they say

"Much of the data from the original moon landings in the late 1960s and early 1970s is now effectively lost. Even if you can find a tape drive that can read the now obsolete tapes, nobody knows what format the data is stored in on the tapes!"

I wonder if that's true. I mean, if NASA besides losing the tapes, also lost the format specification. Garsd (talk) 20:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * If the analog tapes, somehow miraculously, were to be found, the video portion could still be easily read by Goddard's legacy 1-inch data recorders. The other telemetry would likely be usable also, as the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project was able to use data from images recorded back in 1966–67. They resurrected many images recently from data recorded on the same kind of 1-inch data tapes as Apollo 11.--Abebenjoe (talk) 23:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Data Tape Shortage?
--It is claimed this was according to NASA's procedures because they were facing a major data tape shortage at that time-- Why were they facing a data tape storage? You'd think NASA would get first dibs from data tape manufacturers, would they not?

Video Signal Processing inaccuracies?
In the section Video Signal Processing, it is stated that "The disk recorder repeated this sequence five more times".

Now I've read Woods original document https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloTV-Acrobat7.pdf, which also seems to erroneously state repeating part of the process "4 more times", i.e. five rotations thru steps 4 and 5 in their flowchart.

I don't think either the original document nor this section is correct. The goal was to convert a 10fps output by re-recording it at 30fps (29.97fps to be exact).

If they went through a total of 6 loops, where each loop uses a 262.5 line field and a time delayed version of the same field to generate one full 525 line frame that would result in 6 full frames for each original frame on the monitor. Thus the output would be 60fps, not 30fps.

It is clear the sequence was meant to be, based on Woods original document :-

1. Write the first Apollo camera frame on the slow-scan monitor screen.

2. Scan the displayed frame with one 262.5 line TK-22 field, record this field on the disk recorder and route it in real-time to converter video output.

3. Play back the recorded field from the disk recorder; delay it by 31.8 microseconds in a quartz video delay line to emulate the second 262.5 line field position in the video output signal. This completes the first full frame of 525 NTSC interlaced lines.

(This is the delay necessary because the 2nd field starts drawing in the middle of the screen, so 31.7775 midcroseconds = 1/2 line delay).

(At this point we have 1 full frame ready to go to Houston)

4. Play back the same recorded field but do NOT delay it. Just route it to the video output of the converter.

5. Playback the recorded field and delay it by 31.5 µsec before routing it to the video output. (This is the delay necessary because the 2nd field starts drawing in the middle of the screen, so 31.7775 midcroseconds = 1/2 line delay as above).

(At this point we have 2 full frames ready to go to Houston)

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5, one more time, to complete six interlaced 262.5 line fields to make up three full 525 line frames.

(Remember we already have the 1st frame due to steps 2+3, and the 2nd frame due to steps 4+5, we only need ONE more iteration of steps 4+5, not FOUR more)

(At this point we have 3 full frames ready to go to Houston)

7. Repeat steps 1 through 6 for the second lunar camera frame and so on.

After 1 second, we've output 10 frames from the lunar camera onto the monitor, and recorded 30 frames (60 fields) using the TK-22.

I wonder how a technical document from NASA can include such a glaring inaccuracy?

Now unless I've missed something obvious, can anyone see where I might be mistaken?

124.106.141.142 (talk) 14:06, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

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Tapes found?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0bhYZ9Vljg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8108:1800:1E70:6D13:D620:C1C5:4B69 (talk) 05:04, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

According to this, the tapes have been found. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:55, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

But this line: "George watched the tapes once more to digitize them ..." is suspicious to me. It would take one of the old computer data tape drives to get the signal off of them and then more equipment to convert them to a viewable TV signal. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:58, 3 July 2019 (UTC)


 * And this shows it as videotape, not the telemetry tapes that would have the origianal SSTV. But they might be better than anything else that is available.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:02, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

yeah, those are clearly marked as quad ("VR2000, 525 line" & so on), likely a copy that a broadcaster kept. but in all honesty, a buyer would want to get them up on a refurbed quad VTR & see them for himself before dropping $$ on them. there's nothing even hinting at real provenance. add to that, it's ampex tape so it probably won't play anyway (& I know tape history, so I appreciate the massive irony of this). caveat emptor, as they say. the CNN story doesn't impress me much, but there's more 'detail' from the original sothebys listing: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/space-exploration/apollo-11-original-first-generation-nasa-videotape

duncanrmi (talk) 13:55, 14 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I have some audiotapes that old that are still OK. But home videotape from the 1980s isn't faring so well. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 18:23, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Added a CR
I am here to know if they are finally lost. It seems so, then I put a CR. If it is correct, please leave it like that. 158.148.119.135 (talk) 19:16, 15 April 2023 (UTC)