5 ms·

They erased one of the most important historical documents of our time, that was a very bad mistake.

by GTP 11y ago

creshal 11y ago
> The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed -- magnetically erased -- and re-used to save money. You'd think an organization like NASA can plan their budgets a bit better than that.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  You'd think an organization as important as NASA wouldn't have to worry about budget cuts year after year.
  - GTP 11y ago
    You'd think an organization as important as NASA would have chosen better which tapes were suitable to erase and which not.
    - dijit 11y ago
      that's employee time, thus, money.
  - coldpie 11y ago
    The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is chaired by Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who denies climate change science and is currently busy wasting gov't time and funds harassing NOAA scientists. It's all going to be fine... it's all going to be fine...
    - Agustus 11y ago
      Mr. Smith does not deny climate change science, he is a skeptic, not the same. As a congressman, he is afforded the roles of his position to investigate corruption or suspicions of corruption, which in this case includes an agency using taxpayer dollars avoiding the release of information to a committee. The NOAA situation is one where the agency should openly share data with the committee and Mr. Smith would go away, by stonewalling, the agency does not help the cause of science or dissipate suspicion of obfuscating results.
      - coldpie 11y ago
        """It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda.""" http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-down-accuses-noaa-scientists-of-doctoring-results/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-d... Fffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttttttttttt
        creshal 11y ago
        > NOAA provided Rep. Smith with all the data, methods, and explanation he requested but has refused to hand over the communications of its scientists, which it regards as protected. I'd better hope so.
        Agustus 11y ago
        Ridiculous, a government agency with individuals paid for by the American tax payer is not willing to release to the American public internal communications.
        tertius 11y ago
        Why? We don't allow this in business, why should we allow this in the government? Think Steve Jobs asking a VP to show his reasons for obfuscating the reasons for sales figures reported over a period and then adjusted. VP: Sorry, that's confidential. In this situation, I'm paying the administrator (that person that governmental agencies are accountable to) to make sure those agencies aren't obfuscating their own reasons. I demand answers, whether those answers lead nowhere is inconsequential.
        mturmon 11y ago
        That's not the correct analogy. The House has oversight to be sure money is not wasted, but not to monitor all dialogue between scientists. For a summary of what's going on, better than I can do here, see this letter from another member of the House science committee: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.house.gov/files/Ranking%20Member%20Johnson%20Letter%20to%20Chairman%20Smith%20on%20NOAA%20Subpoena.pdf http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...
  - sharpray 11y ago
    Are the people handling the tapes personally worried about budget cuts, or does NASA have separate jobs for separate concerns?
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  It is a government organization. If it can be run badly, it will be run badly.
simonh 11y ago
You think that's bad? There are several episodes of the original Hartnell Dr. Who that were also erased for financial reasons, of which no copies exist at all. :(
- GTP 11y ago
  I don't want to begin a flame, but I don't think Dr. Who is nearly as important as original tapes of the first men on the moon.
  - simonh 11y ago
    I was being tongue-in-cheek, but we do have recordings of the lunar broadcasts and, as I explained elsewhere, there's nothing particularly special about the NASA tapes. They were essentially just VCR-ing the live broadcast the same as everyone else, although I suppose their recordings may have been tapped into the video stream earlier in the chain so perhaps of higher quality.
    - jacobush 11y ago
      Not perhaps. They were hi-def slow scan video. Wikipedia: "When the Apollo TV camera radioed its images, the ground stations received its raw unconverted SSTV signal and split it into two branches. One signal branch was sent unprocessed to a fourteen-track analog data tape recorder where it was recorded onto fourteen-inch diameter reels of one-inch-wide analog magnetic data tapes at 3.04 meters per second."
      - simonh 11y ago
        I wonder if anyone other than NASA was picking up the direct broadcast from the Moon? I've got to imagine the Russians at least would be doing that.
        clockworkelf 11y ago
        There is no way that was a live broadcast from the moon because an analysis was done on the rate of speed sand would fall in the supposed live broadcast. The rate indicates Earth gravity: Gravity Analysis of Falling Sand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tud7xlSI9fo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tud7xlSI9fo
romanovcode 11y ago
It's because there were no documents in the first place. I think we never even landed on the moon to begin with.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  And what, the Soviets and the Chinese decided to go along with it?
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    Who cares what they think? I hate that the argument for a moon conspiracy is defended by the opinion of other states. In fact, Chainman Mao had an unofficial policy of denying the moon landing out of shame. Russia isn't a trustworthy nation and the US could have have a quid-pro-quo with them, say not bringing up their 100+ deaths at Nedelin or lost cosmonauts if they didn't make hay about a faked mission. The reality is that there's a lot of physical and historical evidence here and denying it is fairly ridiculous. What I find hilarious about this is that the deniers don't deny any other mission. Why is it that we can launch all this mass with no problems and have all these wonderful missions all over the solar system, but once we pressurize a cabin in space and land it on the moon, suddenly these people are in denial. Their position would be more rational if they denied all space missions.
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      > Who cares what they think? They're one of the biggest holes in the conspiracy theory. State-level actors with much to gain by proving it to be a fake, the technology and know-how to do so, and nothing much to lose by revealing it. > Russia isn't a trustworthy nation and the US could have have a quid-pro-quo with them... In the height of the Cold War? Not bloody likely. > Their position would be more rational if they denied all space missions. Some do.
      - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
        I think there were more than a few backroom deals regarding the space program back then. Soyuz 1 for example: an NSA analyst, identified in the book as Perry Fellwock, described overhearing Komarov tell ground control officials he knew he was about to die. Fellwock described how Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin called on a video phone to tell him he was a hero. Komarov's wife was also on the call to talk about what to say to their children. Kosygin was crying. -- The US was sitting upon a very embarrassing radio communication of Soyuz 1's failure and didn't act on it. You bet your ass this was traded for something valuable. The only reason we even know about this is because a non-state actor in Berlin happened to catch this conversation and told others about it. I agree faking a moon landing is a bit much, but the argument that "Russia and the US agree" isn't really worth anything. Right now Russia and the US agree that ISIS is the biggest threat in Syria, for example, but from a casualties numbers perspective Assad is responsible for 10x to 20x the deaths. Political convenience often trumps truth.

They erased one of the most important historical documents of our time, that was a very bad mistake.

by GTP 11y ago

They erased one of the most important historical documents of our time, that was a very bad mistake.

> The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed -- magnetically erased -- and re-used to save money. You'd think an organization like NASA can plan their budgets a bit better than that.

hanniabu 11y ago
You'd think an organization as important as NASA wouldn't have to worry about budget cuts year after year.
- GTP 11y ago
  You'd think an organization as important as NASA would have chosen better which tapes were suitable to erase and which not.
  - dijit 11y ago
    that's employee time, thus, money.
- coldpie 11y ago
  The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is chaired by Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who denies climate change science and is currently busy wasting gov't time and funds harassing NOAA scientists. It's all going to be fine... it's all going to be fine...
  - Agustus 11y ago
    Mr. Smith does not deny climate change science, he is a skeptic, not the same. As a congressman, he is afforded the roles of his position to investigate corruption or suspicions of corruption, which in this case includes an agency using taxpayer dollars avoiding the release of information to a committee. The NOAA situation is one where the agency should openly share data with the committee and Mr. Smith would go away, by stonewalling, the agency does not help the cause of science or dissipate suspicion of obfuscating results.
    - coldpie 11y ago
      """It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda.""" http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-down-accuses-noaa-scientists-of-doctoring-results/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/10/congressman-doubles-d... Fffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttttttttttt
      - creshal 11y ago
        > NOAA provided Rep. Smith with all the data, methods, and explanation he requested but has refused to hand over the communications of its scientists, which it regards as protected. I'd better hope so.
        Agustus 11y ago
        Ridiculous, a government agency with individuals paid for by the American tax payer is not willing to release to the American public internal communications.
        tertius 11y ago
        Why? We don't allow this in business, why should we allow this in the government? Think Steve Jobs asking a VP to show his reasons for obfuscating the reasons for sales figures reported over a period and then adjusted. VP: Sorry, that's confidential. In this situation, I'm paying the administrator (that person that governmental agencies are accountable to) to make sure those agencies aren't obfuscating their own reasons. I demand answers, whether those answers lead nowhere is inconsequential.
        mturmon 11y ago
        That's not the correct analogy. The House has oversight to be sure money is not wasted, but not to monitor all dialogue between scientists. For a summary of what's going on, better than I can do here, see this letter from another member of the House science committee: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.house.gov/files/Ranking%20Member%20Johnson%20Letter%20to%20Chairman%20Smith%20on%20NOAA%20Subpoena.pdf http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...
- sharpray 11y ago
  Are the people handling the tapes personally worried about budget cuts, or does NASA have separate jobs for separate concerns?
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
It is a government organization. If it can be run badly, it will be run badly.

simonh 11y ago

You think that's bad? There are several episodes of the original Hartnell Dr. Who that were also erased for financial reasons, of which no copies exist at all. :(

GTP 11y ago
I don't want to begin a flame, but I don't think Dr. Who is nearly as important as original tapes of the first men on the moon.
- simonh 11y ago
  I was being tongue-in-cheek, but we do have recordings of the lunar broadcasts and, as I explained elsewhere, there's nothing particularly special about the NASA tapes. They were essentially just VCR-ing the live broadcast the same as everyone else, although I suppose their recordings may have been tapped into the video stream earlier in the chain so perhaps of higher quality.
  - jacobush 11y ago
    Not perhaps. They were hi-def slow scan video. Wikipedia: "When the Apollo TV camera radioed its images, the ground stations received its raw unconverted SSTV signal and split it into two branches. One signal branch was sent unprocessed to a fourteen-track analog data tape recorder where it was recorded onto fourteen-inch diameter reels of one-inch-wide analog magnetic data tapes at 3.04 meters per second."
    - simonh 11y ago
      I wonder if anyone other than NASA was picking up the direct broadcast from the Moon? I've got to imagine the Russians at least would be doing that.
      - clockworkelf 11y ago
        There is no way that was a live broadcast from the moon because an analysis was done on the rate of speed sand would fall in the supposed live broadcast. The rate indicates Earth gravity: Gravity Analysis of Falling Sand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tud7xlSI9fo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tud7xlSI9fo

romanovcode 11y ago

It's because there were no documents in the first place. I think we never even landed on the moon to begin with.

ceejayoz 11y ago
And what, the Soviets and the Chinese decided to go along with it?
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Who cares what they think? I hate that the argument for a moon conspiracy is defended by the opinion of other states. In fact, Chainman Mao had an unofficial policy of denying the moon landing out of shame. Russia isn't a trustworthy nation and the US could have have a quid-pro-quo with them, say not bringing up their 100+ deaths at Nedelin or lost cosmonauts if they didn't make hay about a faked mission. The reality is that there's a lot of physical and historical evidence here and denying it is fairly ridiculous. What I find hilarious about this is that the deniers don't deny any other mission. Why is it that we can launch all this mass with no problems and have all these wonderful missions all over the solar system, but once we pressurize a cabin in space and land it on the moon, suddenly these people are in denial. Their position would be more rational if they denied all space missions.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    > Who cares what they think? They're one of the biggest holes in the conspiracy theory. State-level actors with much to gain by proving it to be a fake, the technology and know-how to do so, and nothing much to lose by revealing it. > Russia isn't a trustworthy nation and the US could have have a quid-pro-quo with them... In the height of the Cold War? Not bloody likely. > Their position would be more rational if they denied all space missions. Some do.
    - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
      I think there were more than a few backroom deals regarding the space program back then. Soyuz 1 for example: an NSA analyst, identified in the book as Perry Fellwock, described overhearing Komarov tell ground control officials he knew he was about to die. Fellwock described how Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin called on a video phone to tell him he was a hero. Komarov's wife was also on the call to talk about what to say to their children. Kosygin was crying. -- The US was sitting upon a very embarrassing radio communication of Soyuz 1's failure and didn't act on it. You bet your ass this was traded for something valuable. The only reason we even know about this is because a non-state actor in Berlin happened to catch this conversation and told others about it. I agree faking a moon landing is a bit much, but the argument that "Russia and the US agree" isn't really worth anything. Right now Russia and the US agree that ISIS is the biggest threat in Syria, for example, but from a casualties numbers perspective Assad is responsible for 10x to 20x the deaths. Political convenience often trumps truth.