In 2006 the Goddard Center's Data Evaluation Laboratory was scheduled to close. It was the last institute with equipment still able to read the original moon landing recordings in SSTV format. The closure prompted a search for the original tapes in NASA's archives. However, as it turned out in 2009, these had either disappeared or even been dubbed over by the early 1980s, as was common practice at the time. Only a few other photos or videos could be found. The modern known recordings of the moon landing mostly originate from the conversion into the improved NTSC format for television sets. However, in the conversion from SSTV they simply filmed a screen in most cases, which resulted in strong losses in contrast, brightness and resolution. The fact that the original tapes have not been found to this day, caused a wave of conspiracy theories.

This story illustrates the importance of properly archiving meaningful research data. Characteristics of archiving are complete transfer, immutability, access restriction, and documentation of access and relocation of the data. If necessary, the data must be transferred to new media if the old ones have become obsolete.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes
• https://www.zeit.de/online/2009/30/mondlandung-aufnahmen-verschwunden
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verschw%C3%B6rungstheorien_zur_Mondlandung#Verschwundene_Filmaufnahmen