Paine created the Committee on Symbolic Activities for the First Lunar Landing and appointed Willis Shapley as the chair on February 25. Deke Slayton was fine with leaving symbolic items on the Moon as long as they did not affect the crew's training schedule and that the items met dimensional and weight requirements. ![]() The American public was canvassed and supported the idea. Top brass at NASA were surveyed, and the overwhelming consensus was to plant an American flag. This inspired an idea within NASA to have astronauts plant a United Nations flag on the first landing. Kennedy's 1961 plan to land a man on the Moon in the 1960s and bring him safely back to Earth, in January 1969 President Richard Nixon set an international tone for the Apollo program in his inaugural address: Īs we explore the reaches of space, let us go to the new worlds together – not as new worlds to be conquered, but as a new adventure to be shared. Richard Nixon during the 1969 inaugurationīuilding on President John F. Six of the flags (including one for Apollo 13 which was not planted on the Moon) were ordered from a government supply catalog and measured 3 by 5 feet (0.91 by 1.52 m) the last one planted on the Moon was the slightly larger, 6-foot (1.8 m)-wide flag which had hung in the MSC Mission Operations Control Room for most of the Apollo program. The assembly was designed and supervised by Jack Kinzler, head of technical services at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston, Texas. The flags were carried on the outside of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), most of them on the descent ladder inside a thermally insulated tubular case to protect them from exhaust gas temperatures calculated to reach 2,000 ☏ (1,090 ☌). The nylon flags were hung on telescoping staffs and horizontal bars constructed of one-inch anodized aluminum tubes. ![]() Six such flag assemblies were planted on the Moon. The Lunar Flag Assembly ( LFA) was a kit containing a flag of the United States designed to be erected on the Moon during the Apollo program. Buzz Aldrin salutes the first American flag erected on the Moon, J(photo by Neil Armstrong).
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