Nasa loses footage of man's first steps on moon
Monday, 14 Aug 2006 15:30
Original footage of man's first steps on moon lost
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Nasa has been unable to find the footage of man's first steps on the moon, it has been revealed.
Although one of the most important artefacts of the 21st century, the only footage is that found on television broadcast tapes.
Images of the event broadcast on television were filmed by pointing a low-quality camera at the monitor showing the original images being beamed back from space to stations in Australia and California.
Former Nasa workers are attempting to locate the original images but their efforts have proved fruitless for several months.
Working with other veteran officials, retired Nasa official Stan Lebar, 81, has tried to find the whereabouts of the footage by trawling through archives and interviewing past employees.
As well as keeping the footage for prosperity, recovering it is also said to be important because a digital transformation of the images would lead to sharper and clearer pictures than the grainy images that have been seen so far.
Officials claim that the clearer images would also put to rest rumours that the landing was a staged event in a Hollywood studio.
It is thought that the tapes were filed away and those with knowledge of their whereabouts have either retired or died.
The group searching for the footage believes that it can be found, but just do not know where yet.
"Hopefully, if we can find one set of tapes we can find them all," Dave Williams of the National Space Science Data Centre at the Goddard Space Flight Centre told Space.com.
"We still have some possibilities we're looking into, so I’d say the tapes might be found and, depending on how they have been stored, may well be readable."