The original videos of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon were sold for almost $ 2 million.

While the whole caring world celebrated the 50ththe anniversary of the first landing of a man on the moon, and we discussed why the USSR lost the moon race to America, at Sotheby's - one of the world's oldest auction houses - three original videotapes recorded during the same historic event that happened in 69 went under the hammer. How much? For 1 million 820 thousand dollars! This is more than 8,000 times more than the previous owner paid for them.

What cameras did the Apollo 11 landings take?

July 20, 1969 Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrongthe first in the history of mankind set foot on the surface of another celestial body. These steps were captured by a camera from Westinghouse, which was made specifically for this mission. It was located on the outer shell of the module. Before Armstrong descended the landing module's ladder to the lunar surface, Aldrin turned it on and provided video communications with the Earth.

Westinghouse Camera Mounted on Landing Module

Another camera on a tripod was used for further shooting of other actions of the Apollo 11 team.

Hiking camera for a walk on the moon

The camera shot and transmitted 10 frames persecond through the antenna of the lunar module to the receiving equipment of the Parks Observatory in Australia. Initially, the recording was carried out on wide-format tapes, and already in Houston they dubbed 2 ″ Quadruplex Ampex VR-660B onto tape.

Original tapes from the observatory afterwardsParks have been lost. Therefore, to date, Ampex ribbons remain the only original films on which the Apollo 11 landing has been recorded.

For the first time these records were sold for 217.77dollars ($ 980 with today's inflation) in June 1976 by Gary George during a state auction. At that time, George was a student at the university and he was lucky to become an intern at the Space Center. Johnson nasa.

After 43 years, the new buyer offered for three original tapes 1.82 million dollars.

#AuctionUpdate Unrestored, unenhanced, andunremastered the pes ear Ap sharp Ap # Ap Apollo50th pic.twitter.com/f2ulCpIHqz

- Sotheby's (@Sothebys) July 20, 2019

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As indicated by the auction house Sotheby's, videoremained in its original form - they were not restored or not rewired. “They are the earliest, sharp and accurate of the surviving video images of the first steps of a man on the moon,” the report says. Total video recording time is 2 hours and 24 minutes.

You can watch a video of the historic landing below:

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