WASHINGTON, Aug 15: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) no longer knows the whereabouts of the original tapes of man’s first landing on the moon in 1969, an official of the US space agency said on Tuesday.

“NASA is searching for the original tapes of the Apollo 11 spacewalk on July 21, 1969,” said Ed Campion, a spokesman for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb.

The tapes record the famous declaration of Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, as he set foot on its surface: “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

The original tapes could be somewhere at the Goddard centre or in the archives network of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Campion said.

The search for the tapes began about a year and a half ago when the Goddard Space Flight Centre’s authorities realised they no longer knew where they were after retired employees asked to consult them.—AFP