In 1966 , NASA ’s Lunar Orbiter program performed a detailed survey of the moon ’s surface . The Orbiters mapped the moon in exquisite contingent , searching for desirable places that later mission could use as landing sites . The Orbiters sent back their data via an amazingly complex system employing 70 millimeter camera , ocular scanners runningin space , analog lossless epitome compression , and radio transmitters . The datum was stored back on Earth on 2,500 reels of 2 - column inch mag tape . Where this tale gets interesting is what come about to those magnetic tape .
By the 1970s , the tapes were just a raft of forget junk ingest up outer space in storage . When NASA archivist Nancy Evans was asked whether it was okay to destroy the tapes ( they were being removed from entrepot , presumptively to free up space ) , she refuse – and took on the problem of preserving them herself . Evans took on the 2,500 reels herself and began a individual mission to keep up and record them . But the challenge of actually getting the data off the tapes took her over thirty long time : she had to find extremely rarified Ampex FR-900 tape recording drives to translate the tapes – only a few dozen were ever made – and when she eventually locate the drives , none of them work .
By 2005 , Evans was retired and frustrated . She had the tapes and a pile of nonfunctional drive , but NASA defy to restitute them , count on repair costs at $ 6 million . That ’s when Evans went public with the mag tape , and foregather a ragtag crew of quad aficionados who managed to restore the machines , process the tapes , and find the images – never before seen in their original quality – all in an abandoned McDonald ’s donated by NASA ( which , to its reference , did finally fund the project ) . After the leap , mark out an AP television reputation on the story :
( ViaWaxy.org . )
