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

Jul. 31, 2012 8:59am
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.”

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

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.

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

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)

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  • icebat22
    Posted on February 20, 2013 at 12:12am

    Really kooks??? Come on. Use your head. How many thousands of people were involved in the NASA programs from 1968 to 1975? Do you realize how many of them would have had to be “in on the hoaxes”…and then kept their freaking mouths shut for the rest of their life? Good grief, this is Kardashian nation. The gold digging loose lips “with proof” would have come out of the wood work to cash in with “the real story”. Fact is that it happened. And it really wasn’t much more than the ability to understand math and physics. Ever hear of splitting an unseen particle and using that to destroy an entire city? I hear rumors that happened (twice) and it was 24 years before the fake out moon landings. But that’s probably just another wacko conspiracty too…

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    icebat22  
  • The Race Card
    Posted on August 6, 2012 at 12:44pm

    Flags were not made in China back then, I think the Japs made them so some bloated US Ceo could make more money.

    Report this comment

    The Race Card  
  • aeroengineer11
    Posted on August 1, 2012 at 3:38pm

    It’s not even worth arguing with those who believe we didn’t go to the moon. I just suggest all those that believe we didn’t go look into math, physics, and orbital mechanics and really see that going to the moon or putting a satellite in orbit are essentially the same thing (makes a lot of sense since the moon is a satellite of the earth…the amazing power of logic). Ask anyone who was at Cape Caneveral in 1969. NASA launched a rocket, people watched the astrounauts enter the capsule.

    There will be a shadow on the moon unlike many conspiritors claim because the same thing that lights the earth (you know, that thing called the sun) lights the moon and the physics of light are the same in space, shadows still exist (look at the moon through a telescope and you can see that the features of the moon create shadows).

    If you believe we didn’t go to the moon, you must also believe we don’t have astronauts on the international space station, all the physical mechanics are the same.

    I really think we need to get rid of many of the liberal arts degrees at universities and push a heavier focus on math and science so more people learn how to use logic for themselves.

    Report this comment

    aeroengineer11  
  • SquareHead
    Posted on August 1, 2012 at 11:22am

    The fact that TheBlaze pushes this story down the front page as fast as they did should tell you something. To make room for non stories. The Truth is Ignored Here, and pushed down the page. I assume that they are pressured to do so. how sad

    Report this comment

    SquareHead  
  • SquareHead
    Posted on August 1, 2012 at 9:36am

    We never went to the moon….. Wake up and turn of TV land…

    These pictures are a dismal response from NASA, because an alarming rate of Americans are looking into the lunar missions and finding out it was faked….

    It has been 10 years of people telling the Nasa to turn the Hubble telescope and show us the lunar rover, since NASA has refused to answer anywhere on their website the millions of Americans that have looked for answers. NASA, also claims that ALL the files related to ALL the Apollo missions have been lost!!!

    NASA’s response to this is what made me suspicious. At the time the only thing I could find from NASA’s website was a reference to a nobody who had a website that “supposedly” answered the questions raised by the skeptics. I had to an hour to navigate the convoluted website to get to where they supposedly gave the details. For the 30+ troubled photographs that does not make sense, they came up with answers for one of them, just to say that they proved it, and this is how national geographic, mythbusters, and others have gone about it.. To me after I looked at the claims, it was the defense from Nasa, and other hacks that made it apparent that they had faked it..

    Only 10% of you over 40 will look into it…

    Have another Ignorant day !

    Report this comment

    SquareHead  
  • scuffy
    Posted on August 1, 2012 at 2:48am

    Beam me up Scotty there is no intelligent life on plant earth except for me !!!!!!! What a bunch of morons on this site !!!!!!!! The one reason we have not been back is money,and I don’t want to pay for it. Heck at the speed we can go now 25,000 mph it would take three millon years just to go across the milky way. Try reading some books about it and grow up all you morons !!!!!!!!

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    scuffy  
    • FatFreedom
      Posted on August 1, 2012 at 9:08am

      @SCUFFY.
      Speaking of Morons, you should come up with some facts to disprove the dozens of problems with the Apollo Missions instead of your shouting. Though your thoughts are not without merit, but it is obvious you have not looked into it……
      Your post would be better if you watched the other links posted here and told us why they are not true?
      1. You could tell us why the photos where edited as we can see? The small crosses on the images sometimes are behind the objects?
      2. Why no blast crater under the lunar module?
      3. How pictures taken against of the lunar module against the sun, shows every detail in the shadows without using a flash or a secondary light source?
      4. What about the pictures that shows the lunar rover without tracks on either side of the wheels?
      5. Why did not the astronauts ever complain about radiation problems of being unprotected in a flying tin can going through the Van Allen Radiation belt, in the middle of the solar storm we had in 1969. When all of the low orbit missions, protected from the radiation from the Van Allen radiation belt, buy low orbit and the Colombia shuttle that has a protection of lead and 4” of tiles gave the astronauts vision problems and many of them permanent?
      6. The Lunar Module had never been tested prior to the mission; in fact Neil Armstrong almost dies attempting to land a test flight 3 weeks prior. He ejected himself the last second…

      Report this comment

      FatFreedom  
  • dontbotherme
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 11:14pm

    Mythbusters proved the Lunar Landing was real & true. That’s good enough for me.

    Report this comment

    dontbotherme  
    • CuriousCat
      Posted on August 1, 2012 at 8:40am

      Don’t Bother Me With Facts My Mind is Made Up

      You show your ignorance by makng such a statment. As all of you that are out here name calling to intimidate people from stating the obvious. Obvious is that the whole thing was faked for ANYONE THAT ACTUALLY LOOKED INTO IT.

      MYTH BUSTER FACTS is a Lie:
      In their video they are trying to discredit on minor fact that is being used by taking one photo and recreating a model to show that the shadows can given the appearane of not running parallel, as we seen in MANY of the moon photos.
      They use a model which is approx 1/50 scale, and they use a stage light set up 30 ft away as the sun.
      If you are going to keep the correct proportions of 1/50 the light source should be 1/50th distance away from the model. So you take 93,000,000 miles (which is the distance from the sun to the moon) and divide it on 50 you get 1,860,000miles away. The light they are showing is at most 40 feet away.. Who buys this crap!!

      Most of you this is about the only research you will look into because it agrees with your predetermined conclusion, and you will shield yourself from the facts, so you won’t be called the names I have been called here…

      But you spent the most of your life buying what the main stream media sold you, your ability to think on your own was destroyed by TV and Public School. And to realize that what we have been told to be proud was of was nothing by a giant hoax, is just too much for you to bear..

      Report this comment

      CuriousCat  
  • Wringeaux
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 11:05pm

    I wonder if Alice Kramden ever made it ?

    Report this comment

    Wringeaux  
  • siquijorisland
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 11:05pm

    why is that some people in their blatant arrogance feel, that other take all this time do fool them?

    Report this comment

    siquijorisland  
  • TROONORTH
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 11:03pm

    The incredible thing is not that people are foolish enough to believe a Hollywood movie that was based on the idea that Man did not land on the moon, but that they are willing to post their belief for public viewing thereby confirming certain assumptions about their threatened mental state.

    Report this comment

    TROONORTH  
  • siquijorisland
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 10:44pm

    Black Manta you are incorrect

    Report this comment

    siquijorisland  
  • grayling646
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 10:24pm

    We must have went during WWII too. When I was there in the 70′s I saw a rock with ‘Kilroy was here’ and had a caricature of a man with his nose sticking over the fence.

    Report this comment

    grayling646  
  • TeslanEdison
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 10:04pm

    Wow it’s amazing there are still people who believe we didn’t make it to the moon, as if the recent HD images of the landing sites weren’t enough now we’re looking at the shadows of the flags. My dad worked on the Apollo missions and later on the space shuttle cockpit avionics upgrade which was canceled…, and I’ve actually been inside the original mission control, it’s no fake job, it was more than our current risk adverse culture could ever handle. The argument that we didn’t get to the moon is like saying America was never discovered, that wooden boats nailed together with pitch and tar could never make it across the Atlantic. Just because you don’t see it often doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I don’t care how many people get after effects and fake up some nonsense about history, I personally from experience know history. You should try getting away from the computer and go to a few spaceflight museums, see the char on a few capsules, I mean would you really refute the idea that the international space station is there? Someday it won’t be then it will be possible to say it never existed, I know sky lab existed but it isn’t there anymore. I guess if we go to the moon again we should carve a very clear US eagle and a few miles away from that a middle finger flipping the bird, just to make it clear aliens didn’t do it. We have been Amazing as a nation, we contained communism while going to the moon, the progressive liberals hate that so much.

    Report this comment

    TeslanEdison  
  • ChewyBees
    Posted on July 31, 2012 at 10:04pm

    Once you are outside of the Van Allen Belt, you would need shielding from composite materials that are still 20 (or more, never) years out. You would be fried by radiation coming from all directions. Space is not a tranquil sea. I claim that men never even orbited the moon (though space craft has).

    The quality of the photos is telling. My 7 year old could doctor something that grainy with the same expectation using microsoft paint. Anyone with experience with Photoshop knows that any picture, in the right hands, could be doctored to resemble anything. It’s all a sales job.

    Of course, the 1/2 intelligence of an Atari 2600 on board, guiding the whole mission, really sells me too.

    No thing is ever going to convince most people unless TV says so. TV rules the minds of Americans. It is the quintessential control factor of fools, the crack addict’s mind addiction. The people are so attuned to it that anything TV says is gospel, and to argue with it, in their mind, is stupidity. What a fantastic means of control that simple broadcasting system is. It is a channel that programs the mind.

    BTW when I say TV I mean TV, and radio, and njewspapers, the perfect trifecta of delusion and deception.

    Report this comment

    ChewyBees  
    • grayling646
      Posted on July 31, 2012 at 10:28pm

      Gawd, what an idiot.

      Report this comment

      grayling646  
    • siquijorisland
      Posted on July 31, 2012 at 11:02pm

      Chewy Bees you sound some what deluded. We went to the moon six times.
      The facts are out there and real for those of us who can take the truth that we have been misinformed by others.

      Report this comment

      siquijorisland  
    • FatFreedom
      Posted on August 1, 2012 at 9:16am

      @Chewybees

      Well said Chewy. The comments to your post of insults prove you are right. Reading the comments here are like arguing with a liberal that has only read the NY times his whole life and watched main stream liberal news.. They to won’t engage, and muster an argument since they have none. They will always result to name calling as we see the people here do..

      The good news is that the younger generation looks up everything and the facts are obvious, that we never went to the moon. Also they don’t have a life time invested into this belief, that blinds them, and makes them choose ignorance so as to not have to face the pain that what they where so proud of their whole life is just a scam..

      Do inform people, and don’t let the insults of the sheep do anything, since there are people out there that did not go to public school or spent most of their life in front of a TV set, that have not been told yet. They are shocked like people here are but once they see for themselves it is obvious.

      Report this comment

      FatFreedom  
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