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All of us like to preserve a record of important events in our lives. Don't we all have
boxes of old photographs of our kids when they were young, or a rare photo of a
deceased grandparent that only lives on in stories from our family history? Sure, we
do, although some are better forgotten than recalled. But certain events we always
have in letters, photographs, and even old moving pictures from days gone by. We will do whatever we can to preserve these by scanning them and putting them on our computer, and having old 8 and 35mm film transferred to either VHS or digital disc. We want to pass these down to our children and their children. But, what would you do if some of these treasured items were lost? Well, there is a possibility that the records of one of the greatest events of the past century may be lost; mankind's first step on the Moon. I will never forget being riveted to my television in July of 1969 when Neil Armstrong took that first "small step for man." His comrade, Buzz Aldrin would soon join him in walking on the surface of the Moon. It turns out that we were watching a lower quality transmission of the events. A much higher quality transmission was being recorded at several locations on telemetry tapes. Many copies of these tapes were made, but now it seems that they can't be found. If these historic recordings can be found they would be digitized, providing a much better view of the historic event. There are several possible reasons that these original tapes are nowhere to be found. One is that are simply misplaced; secondly they were taped over; and thirdly they just don't want them to be found. John Sarkissian, operations scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization's (CSIRO) Parkes Radio Observatory in Parkes, Australia, explains: "I would simply like to clarify that the tapes are not lost as such, which implies they were badly handled, misplaced and are now gone forever. That is not the case." The recent revelations of Aldrin of a UFO sighting on the way to the Moon has added fuel to the fire to find these tapes, at least for UFO buffs. There is a possibility that much of the mission can be viewed in higher quality, and a chance that the UFO could have been recorded. Tracking station veterans from Australia and America are searching for the Apollo 11 tapes. They are searching for anyone who was involved who might know the whereabouts of the recordings. Bill Wood, technical spokesman for the group, and former Apollo tracking station engineer, is upset that the tapes are being called "lost." His simple reply is: "There are no lost Apollo video tapes." Well, let me say this about that; until they are found, they are still lost. (B J Booth)
Source & References:
http://tinyurl.com/eq38g
http://tinyurl.com/kbrct
http://www.space.com/news/060813_apollo11_tapes.html
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