NASAsscats

I know that Michael Uhlmann has a lot of respect for the people that work in government. I, however, do not. Let me go one step further: if you are involved a government employee (outside of the military), you gotta earn my respect (not that many people are interested in doing that, but I'm just saying...).

Wonderful anecdotal evidence to support my surliness when it comes to the public sector comes from Wired:

WHEN THE EAGLE LUNAR MODULE TOUCHED DOWN ON JULY 20, 1969, all eyes were on astronaut Neil Armstrong. But Stan Lebar's ass was on the line.

A young electrical engineer at Westinghouse, Lebar had been tasked with developing a camera that could capture the most memorable moment of the 20th century – the Apollo 11 moon landing. The goal of the mission wasn't merely to get a man on the moon. It was to send back a live television feed so that everyone could see it – particularly the Soviets, who had initiated the space race in 1957 by launching Sputnik. If the feed failed, Lebar, the designated spokesperson for the video setup, would turn the camera on himself at Mission Control in Houston and apologize to more than half a billion TV viewers. "It was my responsibility," he says. "I'd have to stand up and take the hit."

Oh, don't worry about that. The footage came through, albeit in much lower quality than they'd anticipated. Apparently, things got fuzzy when the feed was being bounced around the world, but the original tapes showed that what came from outer space was actually pretty clear.

The world watched in awe as Armstrong took his first steps, and the camera engineers at Mission Control started popping the champagne corks. Amid the celebration, though, Lebar scrutinized the video, and his joy vanished. He had known the converted footage wouldn't be as good as a standard TV signal. But as Armstrong bounded through the Sea of Tranquility, the astronaut looked like a fuzzy gray blob wading through an inkwell. "We knew what that image should look like," Lebar says, "and what I saw was nothing like what I'd simulated. We looked at each other and said, 'What happened?'"

With the rush of history upon him, Lebar let the concern pass. "As much as we may have found it disturbing," he says, "the public didn't seem to mind. Everyone seemed happy to see the guy on the moon." Lebar never even saw the raw transmission; only the few tracking-station engineers did. But as they converted the feed for Mission Control and the worldwide audience, they also recorded it onto huge reels of magnetic tape that were promptly sent to NASA to be filed for safekeeping.

Not long ago, Lebar learned why the footage had looked like mush: The transfer and broadcast had degraded the image badly, like a third-generation photocopy. "What the world saw was some bastardized thing," says Lebar, now 81. "Posterity deserves more than that." Good thing the engineers in Australia recorded the raw feed. Now Lebar and a crew of seasoned space cowboys are trying to get that original footage and show it to the world.

There is just one problem: NASA has lost the tapes.

The story doesn't end there. In fact, it's just beginning. But I'm sure Wired will sue me or do something equally terrifying (like kill my cat...though I don't have a cat...okay, something) if I quoted the article in its entirety. So, you're going to have to check it out yourself. Believe me, it's worth it.

When I learned that NASA had lost enough of the blueprints from the Apollo missions to prevent them from sending even a classic rocket to the moon, I thought, "Hell, cut 'em some slack. Somebody probably, um, you know...rolled them up to swat a fly and somebody else said, 'Bleh, gross, flyguts.'"

But let's be real here: who the hell has been running the show at NASA for the past half century? The Marx brothers?

Bah. Just read the article. And keep a younger sibling nearby to vent your frustration on.