WASHINGTON – Red-faced because the best pictures of its glory days are missing, NASA said Tuesday it was launching an official search for more than 13,000 original tapes of the historic Apollo moon missions.
What’s missing are the never-before-broadcast clear original videos – not the grainy converted pictures the world watched on television more than three decades ago.
The tapes aren’t lost, insists the NASA official put in charge of the search. But he doesn’t know where they are.
Most likely they are somewhere at the sprawling Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., which misplaced the tapes originally. But they also could be stored somewhere else.
The entire world watched fuzzy, ghostlike images of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. But only a handful of technicians saw the good stuff live, sharp enough to see Armstrong’s reflection in Aldrin’s faceplate, said Stan Lebar, the retired Apollo television camera manager.
NASA hopes the hunt can be wrapped up in under six months with five workers and a bit of travel. Stored in more than 2,000 boxes, each tape lasts only 15 minutes. Everything from all 11 missions – from launch to splashdown – is on the videos, Lebar said.
There are 15 reels (three boxes) for just Apollo 11’s stay on the moon, Lebar said.
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