
American scientists unearth lost 1960s polar satellite images - trauco
http://barentsobserver.com/en/2014/10/american-scientists-unearth-lost-1960s-polar-satellite-images-worth-billions-14-10#.VD1bCUcp6oU.twitter
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jakeogh
About a year ago the Avaneya project released software that can decode the
Viking Lander tapes. A few tapes conatain images that were (as far as I know)
never released.

Samples:
[https://gist.github.com/jakeogh/fa995a3277d500ab59b1](https://gist.github.com/jakeogh/fa995a3277d500ab59b1)

[https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Avaneya:_Viking_Lander_Remast...](https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Avaneya:_Viking_Lander_Remastered_DVD)

~~~
raphaelj
Can someone explain how they were able to take and send such high quality
digital pictures back then?

This is amazing!

~~~
hindsightbias
www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/viking.pdf

UHF 1Kb/sec to the orbiter, also could use S-Band direct to earth at a lower
bandwidth. The orbiter could buffer 40 Mb. Not sure how fast its link to the
DSN was.

ed: 16Kb/sec in there too. Example DSN doc:

ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report2/42-33/33C.PDF

My memory was everything was first shown grayscale, and then color. Not sure
if that was a ground processing thing or the lander/orbiter sent two streams.
Maybe the orbiter buffered the deeper bits and sent 8bit for near-realtime
enjoyment.

~~~
ak217
A 40 MB buffer on an interplanetary spacecraft in 1975 is pretty impressive.

~~~
kalleboo
Looks like the buffer was on tape - it would record at the speed of
acquisition, and then when it was time for transmission it would spool the
tape at whatever rate was appropriate for the quality of the radio link.

And it's small b, so 5 Megabytes on the tape.

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rmsaksida
I find old data strangely fascinating. I actually enjoy working with legacy
systems every now and then - the older the better. There's something
therapeutic about carefully making sense out of old and/or poorly maintained
data.

I wonder if there's a business opportunity in this area, especially for
digital data. Something like a consultancy specialized in extracting legacy
data and migrating it to modern databases where it could easily queried.

~~~
hideo
You might enjoy Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought series. The recurring
protagonist-ish character, Pham Nuwen, decides to become a "programmer
archaeologist" \- the most lucrative job in the universe and also the job
that's considered to maintain the fabric of civilization itself :)

~~~
akkartik
My favorite quote is about unix and _time()_.

[http://akkartik.name/post/deepness](http://akkartik.name/post/deepness)

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astrodust
It's pretty amazing that something pushing the absolute limit of technology in
the 1960s is now something that you could bundle up, throw together as a
torrent, and publish for anyone curious enough to look at it.

~~~
melling
Not really. Moore's Law over 50 years.

[http://observationdeck.io9.com/comparison-of-lunar-module-
na...](http://observationdeck.io9.com/comparison-of-lunar-module-navigation-
computer-with-an-880735459)

Too bad other fields haven't progressed. Commercial supersonic flight, for
example, would be nice. In 1970, I'm sure they would have predicted 2-3-5 the
speed of sound by now.

~~~
astrodust
To deny that Moore's law is amazing is amazingly ignorant.

~~~
melling
Huh, didn't realize that's what I did. Are you sure that you didn't just
misread what I wrote?

I thought by this point that it was well known, well documented, and well
established. So, any technology influenced by it should come with certain
expectations that shouldn't surprise anyone reading HN.

Now, try not to be amazed by Moore's law but by saddened by the lack of
progress in other fields. There's a lot of work to do.

------
DrStalker
How is the data "worth billions"? That may have been the original cost, but
the original cost isn't the same as the value today.

~~~
spikels
"Cost billions" would have be correct. Their value is "priceless" as the are
clearly very valuable but determining that value is impossible. What is a ride
on a time machine worth?

My cynical anti-govt title: "Priceless climate data that cost taxpayers
billions found unopened at government climate center" Ha!

~~~
craftsman
I know you're being cynical, but these weren't the originals--they were
photographic images of the originals displayed on a TV monitor (!). So though
what they received were unopened boxes, they were unopened boxes of poor
copies. In addition, the original data wasn't used for climate research, but
rather weather monitoring and forecasting. One of the innovative things about
rescuing this data was to put this data to a different use than its original
purpose.

I say this just to clarify that it is not the case that we launched these
satellites and then never bothered to use the data (i.e., in case readers had
an image of the Ark of the Covenant being wheeled into a warehouse).

~~~
oftenwrong
>in case readers had an image of the Ark of the Covenant being wheeled into a
warehouse

Damn, you got me.

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spikels
A bit more detail here including picture of the "data" (i.e. metal film cans):

[http://nsidc.org/monthlyhighlights/2013/04/glimpses-of-
sea-i...](http://nsidc.org/monthlyhighlights/2013/04/glimpses-of-sea-ice-
past/)

Which linked to this paper in the journal "The Cryosphere":

[http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/699/2013/tc-7-699-2013.pdf](http://www.the-
cryosphere.net/7/699/2013/tc-7-699-2013.pdf)

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thrownaway2424
16-bit? Did they mean 4-bit?

~~~
edmccard
>16-bit? Did they mean 4-bit?

This batch of recovered Nimbus images was converted from film to digital;
there was another [1] where the analog data from magentic tape was digitized.

[1] [http://www.moonviews.com/2010/03/dumpster-diving-for-
science...](http://www.moonviews.com/2010/03/dumpster-diving-for-science.html)

~~~
thrownaway2424
Interesting. I was thrown off by their characterization of the images as
"grainy 16-bit grayscale satellite pictures" as the word grainy seems to
connote poor image quality, while 16 bits of gray is excellent. Perhaps what
they are (confusingly) trying to say is a very good scan of grainy film.

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orjan
I'm confused by this bit:

"...the scientists had recorded the images on magnetic tape, played it back on
a TV monitor, then snapped photographs of the TV monitor. What he had were
those images, sporadically placed along rolls of film as long as the wingspan
of a Boeing 787."

Can someone elaborate on this?

~~~
gambiting
They did the same thing for the video from the moon. The feed from the lander
was displayed on a TV in the control room,and then that TV was being filmed by
a camera pointed at it. If I remember correctly it was to do with a different
format than used by the US television, and lack of equipment which could
covert such material in real time.

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femto
A similar stash of data data is in the libraries of the agencies that did the
research for the various over-the-horizon-radars around the world. Australia's
DSTO has rooms full of magnetic tapes with decades worth of ionospheric
measurements on them.

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craftsman
These data are available from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):
[http://nsidc.org/data/nimbus/index.html](http://nsidc.org/data/nimbus/index.html)

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kamakazizuru
the reference to dark data is interesting - I didn't know there was still so
much data out there that hadn't been digitized! This kind of stuff would be
great for a kickstarter campaign though..

~~~
gooseus
Yes, exactly... someone kickstart this man kickstarting this "dark data"
organization.

They could easily make large glossy prints of that satellite photo for rewards
and make the top tier something like "Fly out to have lunch with the recovery
team and get an original film tape (already recovered)".

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Hugie
Google should use this data as an overlay for google maps :) I would love to
watch that data on that way. Any google employees reading this? ;)

