See the real moon photos from 1966.

[Abarbarian]

The Hackers Who Recovered NASA’s Lost Lunar Photos

“Back then things were designed, even if they failed, to still do something. Today, most jet fighters would fall out of the sky if they didn’t have computers adjusting their surfaces and their pattern thousands of times a second. Back then they just had to engineer stuff elegantly so that it worked,” he says. “We feel that we’re completing the Lunar Orbiter 1 through 5 missions. They never formally submitted their stuff for the archives so we’re doing it.”

Truly amazing tale. Them folks deserve a medal.

 

[Ian]

Brilliant! I remember reading a story about the lady with the equipment needed to decode these images, but I can't remember seeing the remastered images (especially Copernicus!). I really hope there are some exciting space missions in my life time.

 

[Abarbarian]

I thought you were sending a balloon to the moon as the next stage of your space exploration plan. That should be pretty exciting.

 

[Anon_F]

I really hope there are some exciting space missions in my life time.

Well hurry up & send another balloon up then after all you are a rocket scientist!!

 

[Ian]

Haha, we met up for some beers last week to have a chat about the next project as it happens, although we've got a few ideas there's nothing firm as yet .

 

[floppybootstomp]

Fascinating stuff Mr Viking

 

[Abarbarian]

Despite the advances in computing power and optics, Cowing says the terabytes of images recovered at LOIRP are often even more detailed than those taken by LRO, capable of being blown up to billboard size without losing resolution.
“A lot of the images they’re taking today, our imagery from 1966 and ‘67 has sometimes greater resolution and greater dynamic range because of the way the pictures were taken. So sometimes you look into a shadow in a picture that LRO’s taken, and you don’t see any detail–with ours, you do.”

Officially named Building 596, McMoon’s flies a flag bearing the distinct Skunkworks skull and crossbones, signaling the team’s hacker ethic. The seven or so people tinkering away inside maintain an open-source mentality about their work, making all images and their technological discoveries free to the public.

I thought those two nuggets were very good.