Houston, you have a problem

It was the BBC that previously held the record for losing historic tapes - the first Top of the Pops, the early Pete 'n' Dud shows, and more than 100 episodes of Doctor Who have all disappeared. But US space agency Nasa has now claimed the crown. In fact, it has set a record that may prove impossible to beat. It has managed to lose the original footage of the first moon landing by Neil Armstrong and his crew on July 21 1969. Mankind's giant leap has been followed by an equally giant pratfall.

The epic nature of Nasa's achievement lies in the scale of the material lost - some 700 boxes of tapes. It's not only the first landing that has gone missing, but footage from all six Apollo landings. "We haven't seen [the tapes] for a while," Nasa spokesman Grey Hautaloma admitted this week. "We've been looking for over a year and they haven't turned up. I wouldn't say we're worried. We've got all the data. We have everything in one form or another."