Sat 29 June 2019:
In the years after the July 20, 1969 moon landing during the Apollo 11 mission, NASA was recording over its tapes or selling them to cut costs, said Gary George, who was a college student when he bought more than 1,100 reels of NASA videotape for about $218 at a government surplus auction in 1976.
A one-time NASA intern who bought a truckload of videotapes to resell them may end up a millionaire next month when Sotheby’s auctions what it says is the only surviving original recording of man’s first steps on the moon 50 years ago.
In the years after the July 20, 1969 moon landing during the Apollo 11 mission, NASA was recording over its tapes or selling them to cut costs, said Gary George, who was a college student when he bought more than 1,100 reels of NASA videotape for about $218 at a government surplus auction in 1976.
“I had no idea there was anything of value on them,” said George, a 65-year-old retired mechanical engineer from Las Vegas, told Reuters in a telephone interview. “I was selling them to TV stations just to record over.” But three of the tapes turned out to be invaluable. One of them captures the images of the first steps on the moon by astronaut Neil Armstrong, along with his famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Collectors pay huge sums for space exploration artifacts. Sotheby’s in 2017 sold a zippered bag stamped with the words “Lunar Sample Return” laced with moon dust which was used by Armstrong on that 1969 mission, for $1.8 million.
“He was really into the space program and he said, ‘I think I’d hang onto those. They might be valuable someday,’“ George recalled. “So, for that very reason, I pulled them out and hauled them around the country for the next 43 years. That’s how come they survived.” NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the historic moon landing. The U.S. space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the upcoming auction.
