Today’s the 40th anniversary of humans’ first walk on Earth’s Moon. For folks who were alive and able to learn about news events in the late 1960s, this was a signal event. To be sure, there were many terrific (as in terrible) things happening at that time, but humankind seemed to stop and marvel at the photos of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Hundreds of millions of people around the world watched as Mr. Armstrong took bouncy steps across the lunarscape.
Apparently, those images were not as good as we could have seen. According to NPR correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce’s story, “Search Is on for Original Apollo 11 Footage,” they were actually the product of a television camera being aimed at a screen displaying higher quality images that were made in a different format than the format used by television at that time. I hope the people who are searching for the originals are successful.
- The Wikipedia entry.
- NASA historian Steven J. Dick’s Why We Explore
