• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Four Decades Later, Recovering Lunar Images

H

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
A little brain candy. The article includes lots more pics and text, more than enough to fill this OP. I think you'll enjoy the story. Much more with more pics at the link. 😎

Four decades later, recovering lunar images (photos)

July 23, 2010 10:25 AM PDT

Between 1966 and 1967, the U.S. launched a series of five unmanned Lunar Orbiter missions that photographed and mapped 99 percent of the lunar surface. The spacecraft, equipped with a dual-lens Kodak camera, captured both a 610mm high-resolution image and a 80mm wide-angle low-resolution image and placed the two exposures on a single roll of 70mm film.

In orbit, the onboard system developed the film, scanned the images into a series of strips, and the analog data was then transmitted to NASA back on Earth where it was written to magnetic tape, stored away, and nearly forgotten.

Around 2005, space entrepreneur Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing of NASA Watch learned of prior attempts at restoring the images. With a renewed interest from NASA in moon exploration and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter set to go to the moon in 2009, Wingo and Cowing became more and more motivated to work toward restoring the tapes.

Around 2005, space entrepreneur Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing of NASA Watch learned of prior attempts at restoring the images. With a renewed interest from NASA in moon exploration and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter set to go to the moon in 2009, Wingo and Cowing became more and more motivated to work toward restoring the tapes.

Eventually, in mid-2008, with volunteer help and funding from NASA and other outside grants, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) moved the 1,478 tape cartridges and the drives into an abandoned McDonald's which is (still) slated for demolition at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif
.
.
(continues).
Click to expand...

loir-nasa-12_540x360.jpg


loir-nasa-5_540x360.jpg
 
grrl said:
AmericasTeam said:
Story has 15 photos and only one of them is of the moon footage. The rest are pictures of tapes in a Mikey Ds.
Click to expand...

QFT. Article fail.
Click to expand...

The article is about recovering historic old images, recorded and stored on a now antique recording system, that have been languishing unseen and unappreciated for forty years. That may be more years than you've been on the planet. 😱

Reader comprehension and appreciation fail! :hmm:
 
While I agree the article may be a little lacking in overall content, it was still awesome. All you party poopers can go fly a kite.😛

I can't believe they just stored the data on tapes and never looked at it.

I hope we're able to see all of the images one day.
 
Eli said:
While I agree the article may be a little lacking in overall content, it was still awesome. All you party poopers can go fly a kite.😛

I can't believe they just stored the data on tapes and never looked at it.

I hope we're able to see all of the images one day.
Click to expand...

So NASA spent all that money to take all those pictures of the surface of the moon and couldn't be bothered to assemble the imagery? Or was it they lacked the storage medium and compression algorithms to store them all to a single format that could be viewed?
 
Gothgar said:
good question
Click to expand...

I found this in the Wiki entry for the orbiters:
"The Lunar Orbiters were all eventually commanded to crash on the Moon before their attitude control fuel ran out so they would not present navigational or communications hazards to later Apollo flights."
An amazing program and so very successful; some of the images have been digitally cleaned up and are still impressive, even compared to the current Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which shows tracks from the Apollo astronauts.
 
AMCRambler said:
So NASA spent all that money to take all those pictures of the surface of the moon and couldn't be bothered to assemble the imagery? Or was it they lacked the storage medium and compression algorithms to store them all to a single format that could be viewed?
Click to expand...

With the amount of data they had at the time the best form of storage would have been the tapes. They had over 57 terabytes of data, what were they supposed to do with it? My bet is they did all of this imaging to find where to land the Apollo missions. After they had that information they stored away all the other data. Thank goodness they did, we've got the ability to deal with that amount of data now so we can get more out of it.
 
How did they arrive at the 39GB/reel figure?
It's stored in analogue format, correct?
What's the frequency response of the media/playback/recording heads as well as tape speed?
How much information has been lost due to print-through distortion and degaussing of the ferric oxide coating?

Additionally the system that exposed the film, developed it then played it back to be transmitted (photoelectric conversion?) is quite amazing for the time too!
 
Harvey said:
The article is about recovering historic old images, recorded and stored on a now antique recording system, that have been languishing unseen and unappreciated for forty years. That may be more years than you've been on the planet. 😱

Reader comprehension and appreciation fail! :hmm:
Click to expand...

My age is irrelevant and my comprehension is appreciation is fine. However, IMO image after image of spools is nowhere equal to a few of the recovered images, hence article fail.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top