I was looking up moon landing stuff and found a weird detail about the flag

I was reading a library book from 2005 about the Apollo missions. It pointed out that in the photos, the flag looks like it's waving, but there's no wind on the moon. The book said it was because of a horizontal rod in the top of the flag to hold it out. I never knew they built a special flagpole like that. Does that explanation actually hold up for all the photos people argue about?

2 comments

2 Comments

finleythomas1d ago

Actually, that rod explanation feels a bit too tidy for me. The movement in some clips seems more than just settling fabric from being packed. It looks like simple physics from the pole being handled in a low gravity, low friction environment.

rodriguez.cora1d ago

That library book is correct about the horizontal rod. I looked into this a few years back when a friend brought it up. The flag had a top rod to keep it extended because it would just droop otherwise in the moon's gravity with no air. The rippled look comes from how the flag was packed tight for the trip and never fully smoothed out. In my opinion, that explains the still photos perfectly. The videos where it seems to move are from the astronauts twisting the pole to get it into the ground, which made the flag swing back and forth a bit.