Faded American flags

Maybe Trump will not be happy to hear it, but the flags that the American astronauts planted on the Moon are falling apart, stars and stripes vanished beneath the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Of the six flags that the astronauts of "Apollo" missions planted on our satellite, five are still standing, one has fallen. But the five flags that are resisting are becoming anonymous rags. According to the high resolution photographs of the "Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter", which captured in the smallest details the places of the six landings between July 1969 and December 1971. Within a couple of years, when celebrating half century of Neil Armstrong's foot on the "dirty beach" of the Sea of ​​Tranquility, glory will be obscured by the inexorable degradation of every human thing. It is not enough to go up there to enter the incorruptible kingdom, as the ancients thought, and leave a long lasting sign of human passage.

Discolored flags are a bit like the emblem of an anti-heroic space vision. The International Treaty on Extra-Atmospheric Space prohibited (and forbids) claims of sovereignty over extraterrestrial bodies. It was necessary to plant the flags without giving the impression of a territorial conquest (difficult for US). At first, the idea was to make a row of flags of all nations, a kind of party like flags similar to that decorating some bars on the beaches of Florida. The idea was discarded for little appealing in TV, and the propaganda of great power in a cold war era had its needs. So, it was decided that the American flag would come on the moon in the name of all humanity, in a spirit of peace that was expressed in a plate dropped by Apollo 17, last mission.

Any commercial speculation on the US flag? This was the risk. If it was produced a single company, the exploitation of such an order would have been inevitable. Hence, several flags were ordered from different companies, and those that went to the Moon were extracted by lottery. So, no company has ever been able to boast their paternity. There was another need to be satisfied. Obviously the flag could not have fluttered by the lack of air, but one could not even accept it to remain flush, melancholic down. The solution was to put the top in a small bar. So flags appeared like scarfs left to dry.

For reasons related to practicality and size of the telescopic rod imposed the flag to be left on the outside of Lem, the lunar module. The box of the flag therefore had to withstand the engine exhaust gas temperature. A 2000-degree test failed. The flag was turned into ash. Finally, it was created an aluminum and steel sheet covered with a Thermoflex insulation system. The trouble was not over. In practice, it was difficult to plant the flags in the lunar soil because due to the mixture of crushed stone, dust, lava and meteorite remains covering the surface of our satellite, the rod or the flag did not penetrate more than thirty inches. And now the discoloration caused by Sun's rays is the last problem.

Maybe a sign of the decadence of American power...