According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
“By the mid 1970s, the magnetic-tape industry had begun using a synthetic product to apply magnetic oxide to tapes. However, the new binder proved troublesome. After only a couple years, many of these tapes became unusable because the oxide would stick to tape heads and strip off when the tape was played back, a condition known as “Sticky Shed Syndrome.” By the early 1980s, NASA was experiencing a critical shortage of magnetic tape. The Associate Chief for Goddard’s Network Procedure and Evaluation Division recalled someone from Goddard’s Network Logistics Depot calling him to request additional recycled magnetic tapes to make up for procurement shortages caused by manufacturers failing to meet NASA’s minimum quality specifications.” So what we have here is Nasa wiping out the information from the Apollo mission by re-formatting the tape. How the heck could that have happened? Probably the most important information that generations to come would cherish concerning the moon missions is not gone…Hmm!!
“Telemetry is used to obtain data on the internal functioning of missiles, rockets, unmanned planes, satellites, and probes, providing data on such factors as position, altitude, and speed as well as conditions like temperature, air pressure, wind speed, and radiation”.
Taken from the Nasa Website “When astronauts landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, the Eagle lander carried a small, unconventional television camera affixed to the inside of the door. It had one mission. Once astronauts opened the door and activated the camera, it would begin shooting live images of the historic event, transmitting the raw footage by way of an antenna to Earth below. There, engineers at three tracking stations would tape the original signals onto one-inch telemetry tapes for backup and then also convert the raw feed into a conventional format compatible with American broadcast standards.
NASA Reformats the Apollo Telemetry Tapes
“By the mid 1970s, the magnetic-tape industry had begun using a synthetic product to apply magnetic oxide to tapes. However, the new binder proved troublesome. After only a couple years, many of these tapes became unusable because the oxide would stick to tape heads and strip off when the tape was played back, a condition known as “Sticky Shed Syndrome.” By the early 1980s, NASA was experiencing a critical shortage of magnetic tape. The Associate Chief for Goddard’s Network Procedure and Evaluation Division recalled someone from Goddard’s Network Logistics Depot calling him to request additional recycled magnetic tapes to make up for procurement shortages caused by manufacturers failing to meet NASA’s minimum quality specifications.” So what we have here is Nasa wiping out the information from the Apollo mission by re-formatting the tape. How the heck could that have happened? Probably the most important information that generations to come would cherish concerning the moon missions is not gone…Hmm!!
