'Deleted' scenes from Apollo 15-17 16mm footage

[onebigmonkey]

In the data user's notes for the above mentioned missions, the notes say hat:

The cabin and earth-looking footage has been deleted and has been deposited at the Technology Application Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico”

Here's the document for Apollo 15

http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/SUPPORT_DATA/ap15_data_notes.pdf

Anyone any idea why this was done? And where are they now? Have they ever been released publicly?

Would a FOI request (if anyone in the US cares to go down that route) bring them to light if such scenes exist? It smacks of a standard inserted clause and there may not actually be any, although there is a crescent Earthrise for Apollo 15 that they left in the publicly released reel.

[ajv]

I'll look at the Apollo 17 case.

According to Figure 21 the magazines which were not available from the NSSDC were:

• AA - Earth from TLI and SIV-B
• HH - Cabin interior and heat flow experiment in zero gravity
• II - Cabin interior, eating period
• JJ - Not used.

I checked out my Apollo 17 set from SpacecraftFilms and it has footage on disc 1 that matches all of those (except the unused magazine JJ) and I watched them this morning over breakfast.

I'd have to mention that the boredom factor is pretty high on those though.

[onebigmonkey]

Thanks for that.

The Apollo 17 data user's notes do say the same thing, but on having a quick scroll through the 16mm footage on youtube there is Earth facing footage out there already, and indeed I've actually used some myself on the Apollo 17 section of my weather analysis!

The between the lines message I get is that anything that wasn't the moon was beyond the remit of the NSSDC, and as the reels they sent out were for "precise scientific investigation" rather than general or classroom use (and as film costs money to reproduce) this was why the footage was excluded.