WASHINGTON — NASA officials are searching for the original videotapes from the first moon landing in 1969 in the hopes that they can use modern technology to produce sharper images of the event.

The video, including footage of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon, was transmitted from the moon to tracking stations in California and Australia.

The images that were then sent to Houston — and seen by the rest of the world — were substantially degraded.

Space program veterans believe the original tracking station recordings are stored somewhere at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Telephone calls Monday night to NASA and Goddard spokesmen were not immediately returned.