Search for Missing Apollo Tapes Expands

According to this very extensive space.com story by NASA shill Leonard David, the case of the missing Apollo 11 video tapes is getting more interesting. According to John Sarkissian, the operations scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s (CSIRO) Parkes Radio Observatory in Parkes, Australia, the tapes are almost certainly "somewhere" in the archives at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The story gives the impression that there is an ongoing search at Goddard of old boxes and storage areas. What's interesting is what comes later in the story; the possibility that the tapes may have been erased and reused. The case is made that this would be a tradgedy, but that due to the cost of the magnetic tapes at the time, it is not unthinkable.

If this turns out to be the case, then it will be more than a tradgedy. The original SSTV tapes are of much higher quality than the original TV broadcasts, which were scan converted, broadcast, and then recorded. This situation is starting to reek of the infamous Ken Johnston stories from the early 1970's, when he was ordered to destroy three first generation original sets of the Apollo hand held photography. Only his refusal to obey orders from NASA preserved a portion of this early generation photography.

Stay tuned on this one.