First-generation copies of the converted video from Apollo 11 as well as other first-generation copies and some original versions of the converted video for the Apollo 12 through Apollo 17 flights are still in NASA Johnson Space Center's Informational Resources Directorate's video vault in Houston.

About 18 months ago, NASA Goddard began an informal search for the tapes after some inquiries from retirees from the space agency and others from the Apollo program. NASA engineers are hopeful that when the tapes are found, they can use today's digital technology to provide a version of the moonwalk that is much better quality than what we have today. Goddard engineers were able to extract data from a nearly-identical type of tape recorded in 1969 of an Apollo simulation from the Honeysuckle Creek, Australia tracking station providing optimism that when the tapes are located, we can preserve original video.

In the event the tapes are found, NASA Goddard is taking steps to make sure all the unique hardware required to process the Apollo 11 moonwalk tapes is still around and can be used to make digital reproductions of the tapes that will be kept with the NASA History Office to make sure the video is protected and restored as needed.

The machines pictured read the 1-inch-wide magnetic data tape from their 14-inch round reels. Multiple machines are used because each reel only records about 15 minutes worth of data. As one reel fills, the next machine automatically starts recording a slight overlap for data continuity. Credit: NASA.

TV from the Moon

The television camera taken to the lunar surface was a slow-scan black and white camera with a vertical resolution of 320 lines scanned at 10 frames per second. This camera was chosen because the available bandwidth from the Moon (700kHz) was not sufficient for a standard TV signal.

On Earth, the received slow scan signal was converted to a standard TV picture (in this case, the American standard of 525 lines and 30 frames per second) using specially built scan converters. At Goldstone and Honeysuckle, the conversion was done on site. The Parkes slow scan TV signal was sent to the OTC (Overseas Telecommunications Commission) Paddington gateway exchange in Oxford Street, Paddington, in Sydney and converted there.

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Ed von Renouard writes,

\ufffdfor Apollo 11 we had the M22 telemetry recorders going at 120 ips (reel change every 1/4 hr for the duration of the mission) which also recorded the narrow-band slow scan TV downlink, and we had an ageing broadcast quality Ampex VR1100 4-head desk-size video recorder with 2-inch tapes to record the scan-converted NTSC-standard output TV fed to the US. This machine overheated during the downlink and kept on blowing fuses so we ended up opening its rear doors and positioning two desk fans to keep it cool. This worked and we were able record the rest of the TV.\ufffd