“The video runs for a few minutes and is considered to be some of the best footage of the historic 1969 moonwalk, but the film was lost in archives for many years and was badly damaged when found, said John Sarkissian. It depicts the first few minutes of Armstrong’s descent which was recorded in Australia as Nasa was still scrambling for a signal, showing a far clearer image than was initially screened worldwide.
Telescopes in remote Australia played a key role in the Apollo 11 mission, including provision of the television signal, after Armstrong decided to attempt the moonwalk early, putting the United States just beyond the horizon. A fictional account of Australia’s role in the moon landing was the subject of a film in 2000 called The Dish, starring Sam Neill. Mr Sarkissian, an historian and astronomer in charge of the Australian side of the recordings restoration project, said the unseen minutes were the “best quality of Armstrong descending the ladder.” “NASA were using the Goldstone (California) station signal, which had its settings wrong, but in the signals being received by the Australian stations you can actually see Armstrong.” “In what people have seen before you can barely see Armstrong at all, you can see something black – that was his leg.”
The segment which runs for “just a few minutes” will be screened at the awards night of Australian Geographic magazine next Wednesday, at which Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin will be the chief guest. “When we heard Buzz was going to be the guest of honour we thought ‘what a great opportunity’,” Mr Sarkissian said.”
Read more at The Telegraph (Thanks Tracey)
Well, I wasn’t there to personally see it, so it never happened of course
I’m sure this’ll get picked up on the news Wednesday, but thanks for heads-up. I get a little flutter of excitement thinking about seeing this. Maybe that’s silly, but I find it neat to be seeing this blast from this past for the first time.
Here is something interesting about the Apollo missions that appeared in the Independent newspaper on May 19th 1998. In this article entitled…Revelations: ’I found Discworld in High Wycombe’ Terry Pratchett talks about when he was working as a trainee for a newspaper in High Wycombe
Terry writes “We had some first-class photos of the Earth taken from the moon during one of the Apollo missions. Westminster Press, which owned us, sent down an order to use them before anybody else. There were important local stories that had to be moved off the front page, but the editor, Arthur Church, came up with what we considered a marvellous Solomon-like judgment: I suppose the moon shines on High Wycombe just like everywhere else.
The only reason I came across this article was that an article about me taking in a street gang of 30 kids to my homewho were terrorising the neighbourhood. It was entitled …‘A single parent with 30 children.’ and was written by Susan de Muth.
Well if Stephen Fry says it happened then this should be worth a butchers. (“Thou shall not question Stephen Fry” Dan la sac vs Scroobius pip)