The missing tapes

NASA could not find its own original recordings of the first moonwalk. To a doubter, losing them looks like getting rid of evidence that could be checked with modern tools. [1][2]

The lunar TV camera used a slow-scan format that had to be converted for broadcast, losing quality. Tracking stations also recorded the raw signal on telemetry tapes as backup. [1]

NASA’s 2009 report found about 45 Apollo 11 tapes went to storage. Between 1970 and 1974, NASA pulled 40,000 boxes, roughly 200,000 tapes, for reuse, and another 30,000 in 1981–82. Dick Nafzger, who led the search, said the “inescapable conclusion” was that the Apollo 11 tapes were among them. [2]

What survives is the converted broadcast. NASA’s restoration used the best copies from the Sydney switching center, CBS News and Johnson Space Center. [3]

In 1976 a former NASA intern, Gary George, bought tapes at a government surplus auction. Some held Apollo 11 broadcast footage. In July 2019 Sotheby’s sold them for $1.82 million, which it said was 8,000 times what he paid. [1]