Four decades later, recovering lunar images (photos)
A few passionate space enthusiasts have teamed up with NASA to restore and archive detailed images of the moon's surface taken in the late 1960s by an unmanned lunar orbiter.
Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing
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.
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.
Magnetic tape
Nearly forgotten, the tapes were watched over by JPL employee Nancy Evans, who years later tracked down the rare Ampex FR-900 tape drives needed to read the magnetic tapes. Her attempt at restoration in the late 1980s was sidelined by technical difficulties in maintaining and operating the outdated hardware.
1,478 magnetic tapes
Ampex FR-900 tape drives
Evans eventually was able to find four of these rare Ampex FR-900 tape drives, but after her project stalled, they were stored away to collect dust at her California ranch before Wingo and Cowing got word of their existence via a Usenet group.