Ancient IBM Drive Rescues Apollo Moon Data

News Type: Event — Seeded on Sun Nov 16, 2008 2:41 AM EST

Article Source: PC World

technology, australia, nasa, apollo, perth, physicist, apollo-moon-data, brian-obrien, data-tapes, ibm-drive, sydney-computer-society, sydney-university

Seeded by The Dude Dean

"Valuable mission data gathered by NASA's Apollo missions to the moon 40 years ago looks like it may be recovered thanks to a donation of an ancient IBM tape drive by a Sydney computer society.

The Apollo 11, 12, and 14 missions to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s gathered valuable data on moon dust for NASA, using 'dust detectors' that were invented by Perth physicist Brian O'Brien, according to ABC News in Australia.

This information on moon dust was apparently beamed back to earth and recorded onto 173 data tapes, stored at both NASA and Sydney University. ......"