The heart-stopping moments when Neil Armstrong took his first tentative steps onto another world are defining images of the 20th century: grainy, fuzzy, unforgettable.
But just 37 years after Apollo 11, it is feared the magnetic tapes that recorded the first moon walk - beamed to the world via three tracking stations, including Parkes's famous "Dish" - have gone missing at NASA's Goddard Space Centre in Maryland.
A desperate search has begun amid concerns the tapes will disintegrate to dust before they can be found.
This is like "losing" the Mona Lisa. Or somehow misplacing one of the Pyramids.
Of course, no one is likely to give a damn because an alarming percentage of the US population, steeped in religious prattle, television and enamored of hideous fetishistic vehicles, has decided that the Moon landings were staged.
6 comments:
The second-earliest memory I have that I can put a date to is watching the moon landing. I was 4. Our whole extended family gathered to watch at my grandma's house. I was amazed. I never saw the moon the same way since.
I'm astounded that the original tapes hadn't been digitized a long time ago. The moon landing was an astounding accomplishment. Losing the original data is, perhaps, equally astounding.
This is almost as bad as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation losing all of the footage of William Shatner and Lorne Greene's televised Shakespeare performances from the mid 50's.
Seriously though, WTF?? If ever the phrase "Taken out in the street and shot like a dog" was a fate that someone actually deserved, it's fitting for the person or persons who lost these NASA tapes.
Now that I think about it, which is more likely... that the tapes were genuinely misplaced, or that they were stolen and sold on the black market?
Hell, if I were a billionaire and had the opportunity, I might buy them myslef, if only to ensure that someone backs up all the freaking data.
Either way, this is a huge black mark for NASA. I wish it weren't so representative of the general slide to incompetence (managerially speaking) the agency has experienced.
JohnFen--
I tend to think NASA *really is* incompetent enough to lose the tapes, but I'll buy into your black market theory because it makes me feel better!
Coming soon to a youtube near you!
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