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Science

Does the ‘Star Spangled Banner Yet Wave’ on the Moon 40 Years Later?

Jul. 31, 2012 8:59am Liz Klimas

Five of the Six U.S. Flags Appear Still Standing on the Moon

John Young places a flag on the moon during the Apollo 16 mission. (Photo: NASA/Charlie Duke)

More than 40 years ago, American astronauts began landing on the moon during manned space missions. Each of the six times they landed, they left a U.S. flag, but how those flags are holding up decades has been a question many have asked over the years. NASA seems to have the answer now.

According to a blog post on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera website, new photos reveal all but one of the American flags seem to still be standing. Mark Robinson, wrote he was “a bit surprised that the flags survived the harsh ultraviolet light and temperatures of the lunar surface.”

Apollo 17 mission flag spotted. (Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

It isn’t clear from the photographs what state the flags are in — Robinson speculates they are at least badly faded — but shadows cast by them picked up by the camera show they are at least in tact.

Check out the shadow of the Apollo 16 flag. (Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

Robinson writes the lone flag that appears to be missing was thought long gone a while ago:

From the LROC images it is now certain that the American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11, and it looks like he was correct!

According to Robinson, the easiest way to spot the flags is to look at a series of different images of the area taken at various times during the day and watch the shadow change. Check out this time-lapse video with such a series of images showing the flag’s shadow at the Apollo 12 landing site:

Here is footage of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin placing the flag on the lunar surface:

Watch this CBS News report from 2011 questioning whether the flags still stood while also providing a history of how the flags were designed and why they were placed on the moon in the first place:

Note: As is reported in the CBS News report above, the Stars and Stripes do not officially “wave” on the moon where there is no wind. The flag is slightly bunched and designed to remain stretched out, giving it a waving effect.

Read a more detailed report about the flags on the moon, including animated GIFs where you can track the shadows of the flags, here.

(H/T Daily Mail, Space.com)

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Comments (151)

FedUpWithLibs
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 9:04pm
Are you people joking? You really don’t believe we went to the moon? I can see how someone who tells us to study astrology doesn’t believe we went there. Astrology is on the same grounds as Alchemy. How stupid can you be to say that? It’s Astronomy! Also, Hubble is not designed to see something that small on something that close. I don’t even know why I come to this site. How can people be so smart when it comes to fiscal policy issues and be so dumb when it come to science. It’s times like this that the average IQ being 100 makes sense to me.

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- grayling646
  Posted on August 1, 2012 at 3:56am
  My IQ is 72 on a warm day.
  
  Report this comment
- CuriousCat
  Posted on August 1, 2012 at 8:12am
  My bad ! You are correct I meant Astronomy.
  
  I guess I gave most of you group thinkers the excuse you need not to look into the links I posted so you can remain in your ignorance.
  
  I am amazed as to outrage amongst peole that are name calling anyone that questions the facts surrounding the Moon Landing.
  
  In all of these posts of rebuke, there are no rebuttals regarding the facts, which shows that none of you have even looked into the it! “Go Ignoarance! ”
  The closest thing I have seen a couple of you have found some propaganda videos , with shabby science i.e. “myth busters” The scale alone they use does not represent the distance from the Sun to the Moon at all at the scale their model was. Any 7th grader would catch that while watching, exept if you went to public school, in which case your ignarance and group think is understandible.
  That is the main purpose of public education, so you will follow lock step the estabishment thinking, being unable to think for yourself, and trust your own judgement. In other words 2+2=5 if it comes from the right accepted source, academia, Nasa etc. and 2+2 is not 4 if it comes a source you have been trained not to trust.
  
  “War is Peace”
  “Ignorance Strength”
  “Freedom is Slavery”
  
  Report this comment
fire_fighter557
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 8:09pm
You people are going to feel really stupid when China makes a point to have pictures taken next to old American landing sites to rub in their success. Or will you think that China is staging it too? For crying out loud, if you invest in a large enough telescope ($1,000) you can see the landing sites from your own back yard. Morons.

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quete
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 7:24pm
Yes?

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bankerpapaw
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 7:12pm
Obama is going to send Van Jones to the moon to knock the flags over and stomp them in the dust.

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netman349
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 5:52pm
I hope they don’t find the allspark.

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Yuuperguy
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 5:43pm
I am really ashamed that some idiots could still believe we didn’t land on the moon. When someone tried to tell that to Buzz Aldrin he punched him in the face. Those of you who talk about the Hubble being able to see deep space but not the moon. Try looking at your hand with a pair of binoculars adjusted for distance. And remember Hubble is designed for the long view, not the short one. Morons.

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- Pocketgeek
  Posted on July 31, 2012 at 7:14pm
  High five, Brother! (Yupperguy)
  
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- FedUpWithLibs
  Posted on July 31, 2012 at 9:06pm
  Thank you. Did you read the guy that said we need to study Astrology? lol
  
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flatbroke
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 5:36pm
We landed on the moon, and came back, as far as china going to mars, they can have it! we will take the moon and they can have mars.

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- FedUpWithLibs
  Posted on July 31, 2012 at 9:07pm
  You’re crazy Mars is a prize. For one thing It has more surface than we have dry land on Earth.
  
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wordweaver
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 4:55pm
This article isn’t nearly as entertaining as the whack-a-doodle comments I see. I think The Blaze is really catching on down at the looney bin.

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blair152
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 4:43pm
If you believe the retarded conspiracy theories, discredited by both the National Geographic Channel,
and the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, we never went to the Moon. It was all a propaganda ploy to
convince the Soviets we did so because the technology wasn’t there and it was all done on top secret
sound stage. Remember the 1978 movie Capricorn One, about the first manned mission to Mars? That’s
what the movie was based on.

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- CuriousCat
  Posted on August 1, 2012 at 8:29am
  Sorry it is the other way around. The movie was a based on the Apollow missions. It is obvious you have not looked into the the matter as you are not refuting any of the facts of the facts that has mady us see the hoax it is.
  
  So you are suppriced that National Georgraphic and Myth Busters, would not blow open the biggest lie in modern history in a public way! As people look into the matter and look at the videos posted here and others like the myth busters… 90% of non public school educated people see that it is an obvious hoax.
  
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Alan
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 4:39pm
With the raw sunlight the moon suffers, and having no atmosphere to regulate the temperature, heat builds up quickly. And, as there is no oxygen to allow for burning, the sun has baked the flag black, as in carbonizing. It’s far more likely the dark spot is the flag itself, not the shadow.

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cerlav
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 4:34pm
crawl….walk….run. How could you come up with a space shuttle without the Apollo program first. Just sayin…..

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mdcice
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 4:24pm
Try to get a recent or good clear pictures of the moon.
Hmmm?
Redacted and blurred areas on the recent images?
Interesting.

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- FedUpWithLibs
  Posted on July 31, 2012 at 9:09pm
  Get a ******* telescope and look for yourself. You’re wrong.
  
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Meyvn
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 4:22pm
I am surprised someone has not yet protested the fact we have a flag up there.

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Godrulz
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 4:22pm
Just a bunch of propaganda, this is. We never went to the moon. It was all a movie made on a Hollywood sound stage!
In fact, the moon, Phobos, and Saturn are all spacecraft constructed by an ancient alien race and camouflaged to look like celestial bodies!!
Learn the truth, people of Earth, before it’s too late !!!
I’m a defecting reptilian trying to wake you stupid Earthlings up, at the risk of my own life, before my kind eats you all !!!!

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AmericanPatriot
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 3:42pm
“… and the flag was still there” — makes my heart smile!

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jimva23666
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 3:20pm
Yes, they are getting this line of thought from their aging hippie professors with an an axe to grind against Amaerican exceptionalism. They hate the idea that American capitalism was (and can be again) very succesful. The Lunar landings are an excellent example of a great country doing great things. These kids are getting doppy ideas like this from people who secretly hate America but don’t have the guts to just leave. One of the reasons they are drawn to Obama is they don’t want to ackknowledge something like the our Lunar landing program beacuse it represents hard unselfish work, not the free Government handouts they seek.

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mallario
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 2:42pm
Some liberal will complain that they’re ‘offended’ that the American Flag is being displayed on the moon; as a result, billions of tax dollars will be poured into going back to the moon to take those flags down, mark my words.

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flagwaver18
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 2:40pm
Not to get off the subject, but I went fishing today in the ocean, fishing was great but almost got too close to the edge. Get real guys/gals with some of the comments.

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Todd Decker
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 1:54pm
Yeah, yeah. We never went to the moon (’cause that’s just unpossible); the National Socialists didn’t slaughter lots of Jews; Progressives didn’t put Japanese into concentration camps; Progressives didn’t try to reduce the “undesirable” black population by putting abortion centers into black neighborhoods; and the moon IS made of cheese. *_*

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Raphiki
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 1:42pm
OMG! Most people posting here call themselves “conservatives”. Let’s see – nothing but the truth here! We never went to the moon but reverse engineer alien spacecraft in Area 51. The LEM was actually a transformer. Everyone in NASA has been lying for 50 years and took those lies to the grave.

Maybe the left is actually right – we are idiots!

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ronin_6
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 1:31pm
Oh for God’s sake people. The landing sites have been confirmed by many independent countries including China and Russia. Why would those nations not call us out if there was no evidence that we were there?

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aeroengineer11
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 1:20pm
Wow, there are still people who want to point to conspiracy to go to the moon. Clearly, all those satellites that power your televisions, GPS devices, cell phones and in some cases internet, or provide weather information don’t exist either. Oh, and don’t forget the pictures from Voyager 1 and 2 (which are at the outer edges of the solar system) clearly must be faked as well.

The belief that we never went to the moon due to lack of technology is just ludicrous. The Saturn rocket that fueled the Apollo missions is still the largest rocket ever fired. The disbelief comes from a shear lack of understanding of science and mathematics. Once you have enough energy to escape earth’s gravitational pull the only limit to how far you can go is the amount of fuel on board (in the case of the Apollo astronauts this basically means oxygen).

Additionally, don’t you think that during the height of the Cold War the Russians would have called the U.S. out if the landing was faked. They were trying to get there first.

I am disappointed here on the Blaze. I would think most conservatives would be more level headed and see the truth. Most people forget it was J.F.K’s idea to go to the moon (a democrat) furthered by his successor (L.B. Johnson, another democrat). Usually I hear this conspiracy stuff from ultra-liberals, not my fellow conservatives.
I am officially losing faith in all of humanity.

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- Dorugremon
  Posted on July 31, 2012 at 2:34pm
  No need to lose your faith in humanity. These are trolls. That’s what libbies do: post nonsense like that to make conservatives look bad. They’ve even admitted this, and have long trolled Tea Party web sites. It fits in with their narrative: we conservatives hate science, remember? Also, that the USA is and remains the only country to send men to the Moon still chafes their chaps. We’re a country like any other, no better, no worse (when they’re being generous)
  
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- aeroengineer11
  Posted on July 31, 2012 at 2:53pm
  Good point. Instead of studying things like orbital dynamics and rocket science and determining if the moon landing is actually possible they just look into all sorts of always true youtube videos.
  
  Report this comment
jcldwl
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 1:14pm
Saying we didn’t go to the moon is as idiotic as saying that 911 was an inside job. Too many people would be involved to cover it up. Someone would blow the whistle. As to why we didn’t go back? We started focusing on the shuttle program which had much more promise and going to the moon to continually bring back moon rocks just wasn’t cost effective. We went to the moon. We lost 3 astronauts on the launch pad to an oxygen fire during training for the moon launch and almost lost 3 more during Apollo 13. I will not degrade the memory of those lost by saying we did not go. Those who choose not to believe it have the right to deny just as I have the right to believe.

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FlagWavingPatriot
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 1:03pm
Oh, my. Lots of tinfoil hats in here today. Is this what they teach in schools now, that we didn’t land on the moon? I guess it goes with the whole Obama line that America is nothing special. Doesn’t surprise me much.

I’ll just sneak out the side door…

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Stone Cold Truth
Posted on July 31, 2012 at 12:44pm
There’s always at least one crazy person around you. I would post a youtube link to prove it but then the they’d know we know. But here’s a simple test: If they believe the moon landing is fake because of something they saw online, run.

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