Editing Openai/67c4e193-e008-8008-8d82-c239519e3d5a (section)

==== Apollo 8 – First Lunar Orbit Mission ====

Mission Data: Apollo 8 (December 1968) was the first mission to carry humans to the Moon’s vicinity, orbiting the Moon. Telemetry from Apollo 8’s spacecraft systems and crew biomedical sensors was continuously transmitted to Earth and recorded. Apollo 8 also had a slow-scan TV camera on board (like Apollo 7’s) that sent back broadcasts, including the famous Christmas Eve message while orbiting the Moon. Those TV images were recorded in real time on broadcast tapes (and still exist as film/tape in archives), while any higher-quality slow-scan recordings were likely made on telemetry data tapes at tracking stations. As with Apollo 7, the dedicated telemetry tapes for Apollo 8 were later removed from the federal records storage and presumably reused. Indeed, the “missing tapes” search in 2006 noted that hundreds of boxes of Apollo program data tapes were unaccounted foren.wikipedia.org<ref>{{cite web|title=en.wikipedia.org|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes#:~:text=the%20print%20and%20online%20versions,21%20%5D%20NASA|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref> – Apollo 8’s tapes would have been among those, and none have surfaced since.

Onboard Voice Recorder: Notably, Apollo 8 was the first mission to use an on-board tape recorder (the Data Storage Equipment, DSE) to capture crew voice and instrument data during periods out of Earth contact (e.g. behind the Moon)honeysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_8_mission/apollo8_onboard_audio.html#:~:text=Each%20of%20the%20Apollo%20Command,Data%20Storage%20Equipment|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. This DSE data was later “dumped” to Earth when contact resumed, and the dump was itself recorded onto 1-inch, 14-track telemetry tapes on the groundhoneysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_8_mission/apollo8_onboard_audio.html#:~:text=It%20was%20a%20closed%20tape,other%20tapes%20from%20each%20mission|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. Those dump tapes, containing the astronauts’ in-cabin conversations around the Moon, were treated as part of the mission telemetry and shipped to NASA’s Goddard archive with other Apollo 8 tapeshoneysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_8_mission/apollo8_onboard_audio.html#:~:text=Moon%2C%20and%20out%20of%20contact,other%20tapes%20from%20each%20mission|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. Unfortunately, they too were not archived permanently. For decades, the Apollo 8 onboard audio was effectively inaccessible aside from transcripts. However, in a fortunate turn, a Honeysuckle Creek (Australia) tracking station employee had made a personal audio copy of some Apollo 8 DSE moments during the mission. This 1/4-inch reel of highlights (about 35 minutes of Apollo 8’s onboard audio) was preserved by technician Hamish Lindsay and was digitized in 2013honeysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_8_mission/apollo8_onboard_audio.html#:~:text=The%20audio%20totals%20around%2035,minutes|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. It includes segments of the crew’s own dialogue during critical events like Lunar Orbit Insertion and the famous Genesis reading, providing a rare audio glimpse from the telemetry. Moreover, as of 2020, NASA was able to retrieve much of Apollo 8’s on-board audio from the National Archives: Apollo 8 DSE tape reels were located at NARA and digitized at Johnson Space Center, then released publicly (via Archive.org)honeysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_8_mission/apollo8_onboard_audio.html#:~:text=,Honeysuckle%20tape%20is%20quite%20good|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. The quality of these tapes varies (some audio is noisy), but it means Apollo 8’s behind-the-Moon audio is now largely available.

Current Status: No original Apollo 8 engineering telemetry tapes (e.g. those containing spacecraft sensor streams) are known to exist in any archive today – they were likely among the “permanently withdrawn” Apollo tapes reused by NASA Goddard around 1980poikiloblastic.wordpress.com<ref>{{cite web|title=poikiloblastic.wordpress.com|url=https://poikiloblastic.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/the-long-road-to-alsep-data-recovery/#:~:text=Records%20show%20something%20like%203270,goes%20cold%20after%20they%20were|publisher=poikiloblastic.wordpress.com|date=2013-02-22|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. However, key Apollo 8 mission data have been preserved through other means. The televised Earth/Moon images and crew broadcasts were recorded on film and broadcast tape (and are readily accessible in NASA’s archives or the Apollo 8 Flight Journal). The air-to-ground and mission control audio was recorded separately; those audio tapes have now been digitized and synchronized with transcripts on the Apollo 8 real-time website. Uniquely, a substantial portion of Apollo 8’s onboard voice (previously lost) is now available thanks to the recent recovery of the DSE dump tapes from NARAhoneysucklecreek.net<ref>{{cite web|title=honeysucklecreek.net|url=https://honeysucklecreek.net/msfn_missions/Apollo_8_mission/apollo8_onboard_audio.html#:~:text=,Honeysuckle%20tape%20is%20quite%20good|publisher=honeysucklecreek.net|access-date=2025-12-06}}</ref>. In summary, Apollo 8’s original telemetry reels are missing, but almost all the mission’s informational content (voice, video, and even experiment data) has been recovered in some form. Researchers can listen to Apollo 8’s audio (including crew behind-the-Moon conversations) and view the video, but the raw telemetry streams (voltages, etc.) survive only as processed data in flight documentation. No specific museum or private collector is known to hold Apollo 8 telemetry tapes; the only notable private holdings were the Honeysuckle audio excerpts, now digitized and returned to the public domain.