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How do tapes like this get lost in the first place? I mean, if you were a startup funding this mission, and your CTO said, “Oops! I totally lost all that data f

How do tapes like this get lost in the first place? I mean, if you were a startup funding this mission, and your CTO said, “Oops! I totally lost all that data from our multibillion dollar mission!” wouldn’t you fire them immediately?

outworlder 8y ago
Yes. Except the CTO is dead and his grandson is in charge. And oh, the original building is no longer there. Also, there's no more funding for storage. By the way, the computer systems are no longer compatible and the paper records have faded.
- saalweachter 8y ago
  And your department is only concerned with future capabilities, historical records are someone else's job. And your company just pivoted from lunar exploration to lunar colonization, no, Mars exploration, no, space stations, no, space defense, no, Mars exploration again.
- Johnny555 8y ago
  And data storage was a lot more expensive to maintain and keep track of. When you have a room full of 9" reel tapes with handwritten labels, it's hard to know what you're throwing away when you need more space. If you don't have the (again, probably handwritten) book that tells you what's on the tapes, then you probably just don't know what's there.
azernik 8y ago
In addition to outworlder's comment, note that data storage was a lot harder back then; these days we store them on a network-addressable server with automatic systems to transfer the data between different backups. Back then this was all manual and super error-prone.
- hermitdev 8y ago
  Data transfer for some telescopes is still "analogue". It can be higher bandwidth to literally FedEx banks of hard drives than it is to transfer over the internet.
- nunobrito 8y ago
  That is not a reliable excuse. 700 boxes are "lost": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes#Search_for_the_missing_tapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes#Search... Other remaining copies are missing. The people involved on the mission cannot fathom themselves that the tapes were overwritten/reused, reason why these same space engineers organized the search themselves. It is more likely the tapes are archived somewhere out of public reach. Or worse, are today part of a private museum for some rich elite.
teh_infallible 8y ago
Thanks for all the great answers. I shall remove my tinfoil hat :)
lawlessone 8y ago
>if you were a startup funding this mission, If it was a startup they would be too busy etching a giant advert into the surface of the moon to measure anything.

outworlder 8y ago

Yes. Except the CTO is dead and his grandson is in charge. And oh, the original building is no longer there. Also, there's no more funding for storage. By the way, the computer systems are no longer compatible and the paper records have faded.

saalweachter 8y ago
And your department is only concerned with future capabilities, historical records are someone else's job. And your company just pivoted from lunar exploration to lunar colonization, no, Mars exploration, no, space stations, no, space defense, no, Mars exploration again.
Johnny555 8y ago
And data storage was a lot more expensive to maintain and keep track of. When you have a room full of 9" reel tapes with handwritten labels, it's hard to know what you're throwing away when you need more space. If you don't have the (again, probably handwritten) book that tells you what's on the tapes, then you probably just don't know what's there.

azernik 8y ago

In addition to outworlder's comment, note that data storage was a lot harder back then; these days we store them on a network-addressable server with automatic systems to transfer the data between different backups. Back then this was all manual and super error-prone.

hermitdev 8y ago
Data transfer for some telescopes is still "analogue". It can be higher bandwidth to literally FedEx banks of hard drives than it is to transfer over the internet.
nunobrito 8y ago
That is not a reliable excuse. 700 boxes are "lost": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes#Search_for_the_missing_tapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes#Search... Other remaining copies are missing. The people involved on the mission cannot fathom themselves that the tapes were overwritten/reused, reason why these same space engineers organized the search themselves. It is more likely the tapes are archived somewhere out of public reach. Or worse, are today part of a private museum for some rich elite.

teh_infallible 8y ago

Thanks for all the great answers. I shall remove my tinfoil hat :)

lawlessone 8y ago

>if you were a startup funding this mission, If it was a startup they would be too busy etching a giant advert into the surface of the moon to measure anything.