Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project was a data processing center housed in a former McDonald's restaurant in Mountain View. Engineers there used restored Ampex magnetic tape drives to extract information from vintage recording media and convert photographs of the lunar surface into digital formats.

From 1966 to 1967, five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft captured high-resolution photographs of the Moon, creating mapping data that was essential for choosing Apollo landing sites. Decades later, this recovery project began to rescue those original tapes and convert their contents into modern formats.

The team worked to save recordings from the space age, digitizing tapes that contained the first complete photographic record of the Moon's surface. This effort kept an important chapter of 1960s space exploration alive for researchers and the public.

The building is located on the NASA Ames campus in Mountain View, so visits are typically only possible with prior permission. Those interested should contact NASA Ames in advance since it remains an active research facility.

The facility became known as 'McMoons' because it operated inside a converted fast-food restaurant. This unusual location became a symbol of how creative spaces can serve serious scientific work.