The search for the missing Apollo 11 tapes continues, with NASA’s Goddard Flight Center now conducting a formal, “full-scale look” (previously, the search was pretty much the province of one man, Richard Nafzger, working in his spare time). Details for those who are interested are here. There’s a PDF of a nifty flyer about the search here, and here is an official report from May that lays out in the most detail I’ve yet encountered exactly what this is all about. Especially interesting are the side-by-side photo comparisons on page 9, which demonstrate the difference between the original transmissions recorded on those missing tapes and what the public actually saw on their televisions. Also, the report brings up a critical time issue:

• The Data Evaluation Lab (DEL) at the Goddard Space Flight Center is the only known place
  that has the equipment and expertise to playback the tapes and to recover the data.

• The DEL is slated for closure in October 2006.
  …

• It is vital that the DEL (or some elements of it) remain open and functional, otherwise none
  of the Apollo data tapes can ever be played back and the historic information recovered.

I hope they find those tapes in time. Meanwhile, in other news, we’re back down to eight planets in this system, and we didn’t even have to build a Death Star to do it. I know a lot of bloggers are expressing strong feelings on both sides of this whole Pluto “demotion” issue; me, I don’t care so much. My biggest complaint is that this decision has rendered obsolete all those episodes of classic Battlestar where characters make reverent mention of a semi-mythical system with nine planets…