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The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.
NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.
The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank, California-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September. The preview is available at www.nasa.gov.
NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.
[Editors Note: The link provided in the article takes you to the NASA homepage. This link will take you direct to the HD previews of the Apollo 11 moonwalks.]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday November 19 2015, @02:41AM
I'm not so sure. The camera would shielded from cosmic rays coming through the moon - that's probably more than half of the total off the top (since they landed in Mare Tranquillitatis, though I have no idea how high the basin walls would be on he horizon). Meanwhile the Earth's magnetosphere would be hovering almost directly overhead, shielding the moon from a sizable portion of cosmic rays coming from the opposite direction.
Hmm, actually the Earth's magnetosphere extends about 65,000km sunward (with the solar wind bow shock at 90,000km), and over 6,300,000 km anti-sunward. Compared to the 0.5 degrees covered by the moon's 1,737km radius, the magnetosphere would cover roughly 10 degrees sunward, and essentially to the horizon opposite. Assuming the bow shock would be fairly opaque as well, that could be increased by 50%. Incredibly impressive if it were visible, but not exactly a protective umbrella.