93 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
93 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2015-11-16T16:48:21.000Z'
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title: Moon landing tapes got erased, NASA admits (2009)
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url: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/20/us-nasa-tapes-idUSTRE56F5MK20090720
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author: uptown
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points: 108
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 96
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1447692501
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_uptown
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- story_10575444
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objectID: '10575444'
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year: 2009
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---
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The original recordings of the first humans
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landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly
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restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA
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officials said on Thursday.
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This NASA file image shows Apollo 11 U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin standing
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on the Moon, next to the Lunar Module "Eagle" (R), July 20, 1969.
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REUTERS/Neil Armstrong-NASA/Handout
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NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the
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original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of
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Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.
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The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank,
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California-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September. The
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preview is available at [www.nasa.gov](http://www.nasa.gov).
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NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video
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recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.
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Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight
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Center in Maryland, who oversaw television processing at the
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ground-tracking sites during the Apollo 11 mission, has been looking for
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them.
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The good news is he found where they went. The bad news is they were
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part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed — magnetically
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erased — and re-used to save money.
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“The goal was live TV,” Nafzger told a news conference.
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The Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage, with astronauts Neil A.
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Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. aboard, is photographed from the
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Command and Service Modules in lunar orbit in this July, 1969 file
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photo. REUTERS/NASA NASA
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“We should have had a historian running around saying‘I don’t care if
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you are ever going to use them — we are going to keep them’,” he said.
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They found good copies in the archives of CBS news and some recordings
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called kinescopes found in film vaults at Johnson Space Center.
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Lowry, best known for restoring old Hollywood films, has been digitizing
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these along with some other bits and pieces to make a new rendering of
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the original landing.
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Slideshow
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(8 Images)
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Nafzger does not worry that using a Hollywood-based company might fuel
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the fire of conspiracy theorists who believe the entire lunar program
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that landed people on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972 was
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staged on a movie set or secret military base.
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“This company is restoring historic video. It mattered not to me where
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the company was from,” Nafzger said.
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“The conspiracy theorists are going to believe what they are going to
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believe,” added Lowry Digital Chief Operating Officer Mike Inchalik.
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And there may be some unofficial copies of the original broadcast out
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there somewhere that were taken from a NASA video switching center in
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Sydney, Australia, the space agency said. Nafzger said someone else in
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Sydney made recordings too.
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“These tapes are not in the system,” Nafzger said.“We are certainly open
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to finding them.”
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Editing by Philip Barbara
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