This image of the Earth rising over the moon was the first one recovered by the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project. NASA / LOIRP hide caption
This image of the Earth rising over the moon was the first one recovered by the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project.
When was the last time you had a roll of film developed? For many, our digital devices are datebook, rolodex and camera all in one. But moments captured on film are finding a second life through a project based in Idaho, and it raises some questions about our digital future.
In his Boise basement darkroom, Levi Bettwieser deftly unspools, cuts and winds a roll of film into a canister. He rinses it in several chemicals, waits few minutes, then takes it out and holds it up to the light.
"Looks like there's a helicopter, a bunch of people on a beach, boats just looks like a day at the beach," he says.
Bettwieser didn't take these pictures, and he doesn't work for a developing lab. His mom was a photographer, and cameras have always been a part of his life. So when he started looking for old cameras in thrift stores around Boise, he was surprised to find that some still had film in them.
"I figured all the cameras had been opened and all the film was destroyed or it was too old," he says. He tried to develop them anyway and it worked. "All the images from those rolls they weren't anything significant, really; they were birthday parties and vacations and things like that. But I realized that those were important moments for people. And so I figured, You know what? I need to start finding more rolls of film to process, because there's more memories out there."
Bettwieser scours estate sales and vintage shops for undeveloped film (some from the 1930s) then posts his findings on a website he created called the Rescued Film Project. He says his mission is to reunite film owners with their photos and it seemed to resonate.
Levi Bettwieser examines some recently developed film at the light table in his basement. Matt Guilhem/Boise State Public Radio hide caption
Levi Bettwieser examines some recently developed film at the light table in his basement.
"People started sending me rolls of film," Bettwieser explains. "And I went from finding a roll of film here and there in thrift stores ... to a package showing up on my door every day with rolls of film in it."
He spends his days as a videographer, but nights, early mornings and weekends are dedicated to the Rescued Film Project. "When I pull that film out of the tank for the very first time, I'm the very first person who has ever seen that," he says. "And that is still what drives me to this day and kind of keeps me going."
Somebody may have taken the roll decades ago, and for years the memory remained locked away. Then Bettwieser comes along and not only develops it, but chronicles it in a digital archive. In his own way, he's doing what a lot of us do every day without realizing it.
"Your Facebook, for example, or your Twitter feed you are creating a daily archive of your life," says Dennis Wingo, an engineering scientist and researcher who's worked with NASA. "It's an archive of your thoughts. It's an archive of the interactions with your friends. That has value, not only to you but to your children, your grandchildren and your family 500 years from now."
About 10 years ago, Wingo undertook his own version of the Rescued Film Project. His was called the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, and the goal was to resurrect high-resolution pictures of the moon taken by the orbiter in the mid-1960s. To do that, Wingo had to unlock images that had been stored on magnetic tapes tapes that could only be read by that era's archaic technology.
After a global search, Wingo and his team located what seemed to be the last four machines in existence and extracted the images, which are now part of NASA's archive. But he's keenly aware this isn't the last time someone like him will have to tackle a job like this.
"Ten or 15 years ago, there were several companies that had advertisements: 'Here is a DVD that will last 100 years!' Well, they never thought to include in there: 'Here's a DVD player that will last 100 years.' "
Wingo saved images of the moon that helped the Apollo missions, and the Rescued Film Project is saving photos of bygone Christmases. But Levi Bettwieser thinks both add something to history. "I love the idea of taking what are these simple moments and elevating them and putting them on a platform for people to view so that we can have these shared experiences," he says. "It makes us all realize that we all kind of do the same things and we are similar as human beings."
But when computers are eventually rendered obsolete, will anyone want to save all this data again in a new form? Should hard drives be the next magnetic tapes, keeping the past present could be a challenge.
Read more from the original source:
From Family Snapshots To NASA Photos, Archivists Aim To Solve Preservation Puzzles - NPR
- 2D Laser Profiling Scanner for Detecting Targets - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- NASA Energy Concept Could Harness the Power of Ocean Waves - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Data Acquisition Modules - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dr. Scott Barthelmy, Research Scientist, Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Laser Tracker Ensures Accurate Alignment of Ares I Components - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dual Cryogenic Capacitive Density Sensor - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Advanced Technologies Will Help Hubble Yield More Remarkable Discoveries - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dr. Gerard Holzmann, Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Reliable Software, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- NASA Research Will Help Aircraft Avoid Ocean Storms and Turbulence - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- NASA Awards 2008 Software of the Year - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Here Come The Tricorders - Update - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- China's View on Space - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Milsat Coordination and Tracking Issues - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Trash Talking and End Runs at NASA HQ - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ares 1-Y is Toast - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Beyond Augustine - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Analyzing LCROSS' Plume - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Live Event: NASA-Sponsored Power Beaming Challenge - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- JSC Wants To Build a Replicator - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- USA: Looking For Ways To Hang On - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Lunar Lander Challenge Prizes Awarded - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Senate Votes To Restore NASA Budget Cuts - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- New FAA Regs for Commercial Reentry - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- TEDxNASA: An Invitation-Only NASA Meeting - Unless You Are Lucky - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Close Call For Courtney Stadd - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Space: A Waste? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Making NASA Cool - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Engaging JSC’s Next Gen: A Leadership Analysis - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dumpster Diving for Rockets - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- TEDx NASA - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Reflections On a Business Trip in Huntsville - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Staying the Course - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Economics of Space - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ideas at Work - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Blah Blah Blah - Why We Should Care About Social Media - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Will White House Speak Soon About NASA? - December 12th, 2009 [December 12th, 2009]
- Software Aids Design of Ares V Composite Shroud Structure - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- ASDX Series of silicon pressure sensors - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Industry Update: Analysis & Simulation Software - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Battery Will Provide Backup Power for Space Shuttles - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- NASA Employee Claims To Have Witnessed Hijacking Planning - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Big Party in The Mojave Tonight - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Looking at Boulders on the Moon - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- SpaceBook Featured by White House - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- New Ways to Use Constellation Stuff - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- LaRC internal Poll Update - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Coalition for Space Exploration Does a (Much Needed) Reboot - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Lunar Orbiter: Comparing Old and New Images - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Boulder Trails On The Moon - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Vote for John Grunsfeld - National Geographic Adventurer of the YeAR - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Charlie Bolden at WIA/AIAA - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Live Webcast From The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Big Aerospace Warns of Job Cut Impact - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The Boulders of Copernicus - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- shame on us - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- 2009 Space Elevator Games - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Random Hacks of Kindness - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- TEDx NASA Tickets Available to the Public - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- It’s better in person - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Leading Amidst the Disruptive Innovation Storm - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Space: What’s NOT to Hope for? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Government in the Digital Age - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- SpaceUp – A Space Unconference - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Starfleet Academy? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Crowdsourcing NASA - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Bringing Home The Bacon - December 14th, 2009 [December 14th, 2009]
- Anti-Space Mom with Pro-Space Kids - December 14th, 2009 [December 14th, 2009]
- How Quickly We Forget - December 14th, 2009 [December 14th, 2009]
- WISE Launch A Success - December 14th, 2009 [December 14th, 2009]
- Dynetics Buys Orion Propulsion - December 15th, 2009 [December 15th, 2009]
- New NASA Governance Structure Under Development - December 16th, 2009 [December 16th, 2009]
- Bolden Meets With Obama on Wednesday - December 16th, 2009 [December 16th, 2009]
- MSFC Procurement Doesn't Understand what "Open Source" Means - December 16th, 2009 [December 16th, 2009]
- Bolden Meets With Obama - December 17th, 2009 [December 17th, 2009]
- Parker Griffith AT MSFC Today - December 18th, 2009 [December 18th, 2009]
- Why Your NASA Computer May Not Work Properly - December 18th, 2009 [December 18th, 2009]
- Lakes and Fog on Titan - December 18th, 2009 [December 18th, 2009]
- Waterworld Found - December 18th, 2009 [December 18th, 2009]
- Pandora Could Exist - December 18th, 2009 [December 18th, 2009]
- Laurie Leshin Is The New ESMD Deputy AA - December 18th, 2009 [December 18th, 2009]