The original footage of the first ever extravehicular activity on the moon will be auctioned for millions of dollars. A NASA technician trainee accidentally bought them along with a large number of used films forty years ago and for a long time had no idea what kind of treasure he keeps at home.
In 1976, Gary George bought 1,150 cassettes and reels of various films and tapes at a government auction for over $ 200 (taking into account inflation in 2019, this is more than $ 1,200). At Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, NASA was selling off excess property and among the lots were carriers of information that, in the opinion of employees, were no longer of value. Gary's attention was drawn to 65 boxes of high quality Ampex film, each costing $ 260. He decided to resell them for reuse to television studios and thus earn much more than he paid for the entire purchase. Fortunately, his father noticed three reels of magnetic tape labeled “APOLLO 11 EVA | July 20, 1969 ". Since the equipment for viewing them was very difficult to find,the records were simply kept in the George family "just in case" for many years.
Three reels of 2-inch (50.4 mm) Ampex 148 High Band 2-inch cross-line tape turned out to be worth hundreds of times more 50 years later than Gary could have sold in the 1970s.
The turning point came in 2008, when NASA searched for the originals of the lost recordings in order to restore the chronicle in high quality for the fortieth anniversary of the landing on the Moon. At that time, Gary could not agree with the agency on the conditions for the transfer of archival materials and decided to study the reels himself. With great difficulty, he was able to find a way to view them and, most likely, for the first time since filming, the tapes were reproduced at the California studio DC Video by archival specialist David Crostwaite. The tapes were in excellent condition and were digitized in the same year without any loss of quality. The terabyte hard drive with this digital copy will be part of the lot that Sotheby's will put up for auction on the Apollo 11 50th anniversary on July 20, 2019, at an initial price of $ 700,000. Auction house specialists have confirmedthat the records are authentic and valued at $ 1-2 million.
APOLLO 11 EVA | July 20, 1969 REEL 1−3 VR2000 525 Hi Band 15 ips..
This amazing story shows how easily, over 50 years, evidence of even the most important historical events can be lost and then recovered. Because storage media were fabulous in the 1970s, they were often reused, sold, and rewritten. However, the high cost was known only to specialists who worked with them. It is possible that employees were responsible for the sale of unnecessary property, who did not realize the value of all the lots and considered them just extra junk on the balance sheet of NASA.
Vasily Parfenov