NASA has finally serve a long - standing doubtfulness : all but one of the six American flag on the Moonare still fend up . Everyone is now proudly talk about it . The only job is that they are n’t American flag any longer .
They are all whitened .
The argumentation on the Moon flagshas been going on for decennium . engineer and historiographer have been discussing it without ever coming to a definitive answer as to their status . Even Dennis Lacarruba — the manufacturer of the flag — didn’t think they would still be resist erect . Lacarruba ’s New Jersey company , Annin , made the nylon flags for $ 5.50 ( $ 33 in 2012 dollars ) a opus in 1969 :

I ca n’t consider there would be anything allow . I got ta be honest with you . It ’s gon na be ashes .
Even the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera man , Dr. Mark Robinson , was skeptical . Like Lacarruba , Robinson thought that there would n’t be any ghost of the flag to be receive .
But his own camera has show him wrong . The LRO has beentaking pic of the Moon landing sitesfor a while now . They areso sharp that you may even see the tracks of the rovers .

https://gizmodo.com/nasa-to-take-photos-of-lunar-landing-sites-end-conspir-5309453
These pic show that the shadows of the flags are still there . There ’s even a video showing how the shadow alter as the Moon rotates . Indeed , all of them are stand up except the one forget by Armstrong and Aldrin , the first two military man on the Moon . The Apollo 11 lunar faculty crew placed the flag too close to their ballistic capsule and , according to Buzz Aldrin himself , it was blown away as they smash off to rendezvous with Michael Collins , on board Columbia , their Command and Service Module orb the Moon .
We come in peace
So America f*ck yeah , veracious ? Not quite . While the $ 5.50 nylon flags are still flap on the windless orb , they are not signal flag of the United States of America anymore . All Moon and cloth experts have no doubt about it : the flags are now whole ashen . If you leave a flag on Earth for 43 years , it would be almost totally faded . On the Moon , with no atmospheric aegis whatsoever , that process happens a lot quicker . The headliner and banding disappeared from our Moon flags quite some time ago .
allot to lunar scientist Paul Spudis :
For forty - left over years , the flag have been display to the full furiousness of the Moon ’s surroundings – alternating 14 days of searing sunlight and 100 ° C estrus with 14 days of numbing - low temperature -150 ° C darkness . But even more prejudicial is the acute ultraviolet ( UV ) radiation from the virginal unfiltered sunlight on the cloth ( modal ) from which the Apollo flags were made . Even on Earth , the color of a cloth pin flown in smart sunlight for many years will finally fade and need to be replace . So it is likely that these symbolic representation of American achievement have been turn in clean , bleached white by the UV irradiation of unfiltered sunshine on the lunar open . Some of them may even have begun to physically decay under the acute flux .

Robinson and Lacarruba gibe with Spudis .
So , at the end , it turns out thatthe commemorative plaque leftby Armstrong , Aldrin and Collins on the Eagle ’s lineage stage , left on the surface of the Moon , was right :
https://gizmodo.com/what-was-the-first-typeface-on-the-moon-5865291

Here gentleman’s gentleman from the major planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon .
July 1969 , A.D.
We arrive in peace for all mankind .

Neil A. Armstrong , Michael Collins , Edwin E. Aldrin
We came in peace indeed . And here ’s the flag to prove it .
Now , take us to your drawing card .

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