posted 03-23-2020 04:55 PM               

I'm reaching out to see first see if there is an availability of (nearly) full-duration NASA TV coverage of early shuttle missions (STS-1 through approximately STS-49). There are other later gaps, but this is where the gap is the largest.

I'd be willing to make trades if there are others who have actually delved into this realm of collecting/documenting. I would still need to evaluate a suitable means of file transfers given the size of these files.

Some background: Way back when I got interested in the shuttle program, starting with STS-54, I wound up having access to NASA-Select on satellite and started to record, via VHS, most of the major events (launches, landings, EVAs). So I have a pretty robust collection from 1993 on of unedited coverage.

Granted, this is of the more significant mission milestones, not complete mission coverage. There are still numerous gaps in the later missions, to be sure, which I actually still need to figure out.

Round about 2003 or '04 I was able to purchase a large collection of video tapes which had a pretty decent collection from STS-1 through some overlap where I started in the early 90s. Someone on here is likely to be that original owner, I suspect. However, a lot of the really early coverage was network or CNN coverage.

About a year and half ago, I was able to digitize pretty much this entire collection.
And so now I have 3.2 TB of shuttle history on hard drive. Files are of course duplicated on a separate drive.

It took the better part of year to do this. I actually redid a good portion after I had to upgrade to some better equipment after a VHS player failed about half way through the first time.