When a probe is in transit from earth to (you name it), do we archive all of the bits transmitted during the voyage? When it's time to purge, to sort the wheat from the chaff, WHO makes that decision?

Who'd have imagined that NASA MOON DATA might get lost? But it's happened!

I must imagine that the ancient technology used to encode those tapes could be replicated with a suitable scanning head and some of our flexible analog amplifiers / digitizers. Afterall, the data on the tape is likely some sort of FSK structure, and decoding the actual data back into a series of 1's and 0's should be pretty easy, once the geometry of the recorded "image" is replicated. After that, the data should have a structure that can be reverse engineered by a pimply-faced hacker in seconds.

I'm curious as to what we'll learn from those tapes!

Anybody remember pcx files from the early 90s? There is less of a chance of old media files no longer working, since there's always people to program converters (I have emulators for C64 programs). But you still have to wonder about some media of today…

I'm sure there are plenty of people who either still remember the days before compilers or could figure it out easy enough.

Decoding would be based around the instruments used to collect the data. You'd have to know the engineering / specs and after that it would be fairly straight-forward.

For instance, and assuming the data is digital, using nothing fancier than 16 bit hex machine code. The actual data would have been stored back with the instrument address, you just have to know the engineering of the instrument to figure out what D 0011 A10E translated to.

Great question, it should be treated as an ET message. If we can't decode this, what hope is there in decoding anything.

If IBM has lost the capability to restore data recorded with IBM technology, then how could one expect that from the very smaller enterprise called NASA which competence lies on a completely different sector?

Moon dust hasn't moved since whatever meteorite impact generated it. All the rough edges are still there, waiting to lodge in the cracks of your spacesuit like the stickerburrs growing on the edge of NASA Road 1 in Houston.

Something else I think they will find rather important when building and living in a permanent lunar colony.

I wonder if Mars dust is any "nicer"?

Besides the fact that few probably even thought about or cared if Apollo-era data tapes could be read decades from then, I also get the feeling that since future manned lunar missions after Apollo 17 would not happen until the distant 21st Century, that by then new data would be gathered before a lunar colony was set up. Little did they know that lunar dust issues would not be taken seriously until a matter of years ago.

We didn't have a scientific mindset because, pure and simple, it wasn't a scientific mission. Science was certainly a justification, but the purpose of the mission was definitely national pride and technology demonstration.

Wish them lots of luck…

Amazing. We go to the moon, collect data, and then:
1. Lose the backup tapes and the ability to read them..
2. Think some of it is not important

What kind of "scientific" mindset is that? How much more data was lost because shortsighted people said "eh, who cares?" Sheer stupidity and a waste of taxpayer dollars. Thanks NASA.

Till to that moment it is the most heroic picture of a human who has crossed the last frontier.

It makes one realize the benefit of having a hard copy on acid free paper.

Sorry – I couldn't help myself.

40 years and the data're bordering on lost. Worrying, actually.