Originally Posted by
wiggy
There was never any live video of the actual Apollo landings as viewed from the spacecraft.
If you watched the Apollo landings on TV at the time you actually got pretty much the same presentation as last night - one or two wide angle views of the Mission Operations Control Room, plus the odd (sometimes very odd) animation and the occasional glimpse of the pundits in the studio...
The Apollo LM descent and landing footage that has made it into the various documentaries, films and onto the web over the years was taken with a film camera looking out of the LM pilot's window....that film was returned to Earth and got released to the news agencies maybe a week or so after the landing.
Live TV coverage from the surface itself actually started well after the landing, usually shortly after the commencement of the first EVA.
FWIW the last three Apollo missions carried the Lunar Rover which had an TV system completely independent from the LM. That was left operating after the astronauts has stepped off the surface for the last time and so was able to provide live footage of the LM
liftoff from the Lunar Surface.
CBS Apollo 11....
I believe Neil Armstrong stepping off Apollo 11 onto the moon was broadcast live (other beliefs are available
)
...and I can remember watching what seemed to be interminable footage of the moon surface passing slowly underneath a spacecraft. That could have been from the orbiter rather than the landing module and I don't remember which mission it was but I'm sure it was live. It was too boring to be a documentary.
Either way it was 50 years ago now and was assuming we'd get to see some similar but less blurry footage.
I take ORAC's point about this being a commercial operation and I can see that there's much less general interest now so I guess it wasn't worth the candle.