What happened to the flags Apollo astronauts left on the moon?

[Admin]

Astronauts placed six different American flags on the moon during the Apollo program. What became of those flags in the years since, and why were they controversial?

What happened to the flags Apollo astronauts left on the moon? : Read more

 

[penguin44]

Interesting! Also don't forget that both Buzz and Neil have said a few times over the years that their flag was blasted over when the acent engine was lit.

 

[caltech59]

Organic matter will be reduced to a graphitic dust, at most, over 55 years of direct solar UV. Any oxygen from the surroundings that strays into the carbon might, with the help of UV, see the carbon off-gas as CO.
If the flags were woven of mineral-colored glass or ceramic, different story.

 

[tray3011]

Amazing achievement. I dreamt of future endeavors, imagining how much farther mankind would progress. How sad that humans have devolved instead.

 

[m4n8tpr8b]

Any oxygen from the surroundings that strays into the carbon might, with the help of UV, see the carbon off-gas as CO.

But there is not much oxygen there.

There are less than 500 atoms per cubic centimetre in the Moon's "atmosphere". Using the room temperature thermal velocity of oxygen atoms (a little over 600 m/s) for a veeeery rough over-estimate, that's less than 6*10^7 potential oxygen absorptions per second on both sides of a surface of one square centimetre.

If you assume a flag with a thickness of 210 grams per m^2, of a material that is at least 60% carbon (like polyester), then that's 6*10^20 carbon atoms each cm^2. With the upper bound for potential oxygen flow derived above, even assuming a 100% efficiency, it would take at least 10^13 seconds for all the carbon in the flag material to turn into CO. That's about 317,000 years.

 

[North]

I read some where that they put metal wire around the flags so they would stay up

 

[modelrocketman]

Astronauts placed six different American flags on the moon during the Apollo program. What became of those flags in the years since, and why were they controversial?

What happened to the flags Apollo astronauts left on the moon? : Read more

There was an ascent video from an L.M. that clearly shows the U.S. Flag being blown over from the rocket thrust of the ascending lunar module. I don't know if it was from Apollo 11 but thought it was from a later flight. Obviously blown over on ascent. Even when I was a kid and watched the videos from the moon live, I thought the flag was placed too close to the L.M. I even wasn't a real rocket scientist back then either. Figured the flags would be blown over and I was just in grade school too. Perhaps in the future they'll get cameras close enough within zoom range to document if flags are still standing or blown over at the landing sites. I believe there is an International treaty that's been signed to preserve all of the moon landing sites as sacred and not to be molested with. To prove or disprove the "blown down" theory might not be achievable in the near future. It was assumed nations didn't want to add "footprints" to already historical sites.

 

[penguin44]

There was an ascent video from an L.M. that clearly shows the U.S. Flag being blown over from the rocket thrust of the ascending lunar module. I don't know if it was from Apollo 11 but thought it was from a later flight. Obviously blown over on ascent. Even when I was a kid and watched the videos from the moon live, I thought the flag was placed too close to the L.M. I even wasn't a real rocket scientist back then either. Figured the flags would be blown over and I was just in grade school too. Perhaps in the future they'll get cameras close enough within zoom range to document if flags are still standing or blown over at the landing sites. I believe there is an International treaty that's been signed to preserve all of the moon landing sites as sacred and not to be molested with. To prove or disprove the "blown down" theory might not be achievable in the near future. It was assumed nations didn't want to add "footprints" to already historical sites.

It was apollo 11. All the others were placed further away.