One of the greatest tragedies in modern science is the loss of the original Apollo moon landing tapes. For years we've been left with only poor-quality tapes-of-tapes of the original broadcast. But now, thanks in part to Nvidia, we can finally watch one of mankind's greatest achievements in glorious high-def.

Lowry Digital used several Nvidia Tesla GPUs with CUDA technology to enhance the original coverage of the landing to HD standards. It's not quite the same as having the original footage of the event intact. Essentially, what Nvidia's machines did is use the existing tape as a substructure around which to drive the animation engine.

The final, enhanced Apollo 11 video will consist of two-and-a-half hours of HD footage. Lowry is currently working their way through the rest of NASA's Moon landing video archive, and the entire project should be finished by September. If you'd like to check out some images or short video of the new HD videos and pictures, you can check them out here.