Quote:
Originally Posted by cosmicdave
How convenient that those accusers suddenly butted out of the argument!
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Thank you for your patience while I celebrated my birthday and while the daily rotation of the planet suggested that those of us in the United States should get some sleep. I'm sorry that those superfluous activities got in the way of your great debate. Of course none of us should have a
life outside the internet. I apologize for my dereliction.
No one has disputed that the version of the Apollo 11 EVA as seen by most Americans (and as preserved from those broadcast sources) is degraded. Dwight and I, among others, have discussed them at length here and elsewhere.
The question has been whether versions of acceptable quality, or of quality comparable to that which may hypothetically be obtained by examining the SSTV raw data, are available. Pointing out that quality differs among the surviving copies does not support your argument.
You are trying to establish some sort of negligence or impropriety on NASA's part for not having retained the SSTV tapes in a prominent location and in usable form. That argument depends upon several premises, one of which is that the expected image quality would be so superior as to justify the expense and effort. Toward that end you have compared isolated film frames from the SSTV CRT with their corresponding frames in the worst of the most accessible videotape versions. Yes, I agree that there is a marked difference in quality between those. The question is whether there is a
sufficient difference in quality between the SSTV raw data and the
best available copies to make the SSTV data a
sine qua non for historical research and thus (a) justify the expense and effort of maintaining the means to read it, and (b) justify your vilification of NASA (really the National Archives) for not having taken better care of it.
The fact remains that the SSTV raw data tapes are simply not a practical means for storing and viewing the Apollo 11 EVA television record. The only way in which that data may be used is to sit physically in front of a decades-old machine and watch the image on the built-in CRT.
Here is a picture of the machine as it was instantiated at Honeysuckle Creek. You have steadfastly ignored those practical limitations, as evidenced in your attempts to analogize the problem only in terms of standardized formats.
Any conversion from the raw SSTV form to a usable format that doesn't require you to sit in Ed's chair (he's the guy in the photo) at any level of quality will require an optical conversion step. Dwight has referred you to just such material that was made and kept. No, it will not be a perfect copy, as such a standard was not attainable by any means in 1969 and is still elusive today. The question is whether such material is of
sufficient quality to forego the marginal increase that would hypothetically be provided in the SSTV raw data. Ultimately that will be a subjective determination.
But unfortunately you have made an argument that requires you to shoulder the burden to prove that the SSTV is not merely of abitrarily or abstractlly better quality, but of
sufficiently better quality than all other surviving copies to justify the practical steps that must be taken to obtain, store, an acces it. You are now trying to lower that burden of proof and shift it to Dwight. You are the one making a tempest about how inexcusable it is not to be able to view the SSTV raw data. That requires you to justify your expectations.