Quote:
Originally Posted by cosmicdave
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The obvious question is if this is the best quality film taken from Apollo 11...
It's analog tape of the raw SSTV downlink signal. It isn't film. It isn't standard videotape. It can only be played on equipment specially designed for this particular SSTV implementation, used only for the Apollo 11 lunar surface EVA. That equipment is about the size of two refrigerators, is 40 years old, is delicate and not easily moved, ever existed in only a handful of instances, and cannot convert to any other format; it can only display the picture on its built-in TV screen.
...why didn't NASA make sure that it was properly labeled and stored so that it could be easily found?
The storage of such records falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. National Archives, which provides that service for all U.S. government agencies and offices, with some exceptions. NASA delivered all its raw material to the Archives as required by regulation. The Archives in turn applies its own policy to determine what will be indexed immediately and what will be indexed later as resources become available.
Raw data that can only be read by a special machine and of which suitable copies exist in standardized formats does not seem to require immediate indexing.
Whats the significance of this film? Its the clearest footage taken!
Not a good enough reason. The cost and effort involved to access the material must be weighed against its potential value. High-quality copies of the Apollo 11 lunar EVA exist. Handwaving aside, what
specific benefit do you purport to gain from this data that would justify the expense and difficulty of making it accessible?
If good enough quality for some purpose can be found in standardized formats, where is your justification?
Its a bit like making a Hollywood film and losing the original master copy.
No, it's nothing like that at all.
A camera negative in a Hollywood production is typically standard Eastman film stock that can be fed into any of a hundred types of standard 35 or 70 mm equipment for various purposes such as developing, printing, and scanning to digital formats. It can be processed and treated by any of dozens of standard chemical processes for those emulsions. It can be stored and retrieved according to any of a number of standard methods that are well-tested by the industry.
Custom slow-scan raw data is not in any way like a standard format. And one can easily make the case that the first thing one ought to do with such data is to copy it immediately to a standard signal format and a standard storage medium that makes it instantly available to standardized equipment of the industry.
Any other 'copies' are inferior to the original.
In what
exact ways? I have asked you several times for details on this claim, and all I'm getting is handwaving. You are trying to make the case that the inaccessibility of this data is somehow remarkable. You bear the burden to prove that something about this data makes its unavailability inexcusable.
I thought that as your a 'photographic expert', you would realise that?
As a photographic expert I realize why your handwaving is insufficient and why your analogy is inapplicable.