In an article in the Smithsonian Air&Space magazine, lunar scientist Paul Spudis explains: Over the course of the Apollo program, our astronauts deployed six American flags on the Moon. For forty-odd years, the flags have been exposed to the full fury of the Moon’s environment – alternating 14 days of searing sunlight and 100° C heat with 14 days of numbing-cold -150° C darkness. But even more damaging is the intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the pure unfiltered sunlight on the cloth (modal) from which the Apollo flags were made. Even on Earth, the colors of a cloth flag flown in bright sunlight for many years will eventually fade and need to be replaced. So it is likely that these symbols of American achievement have been rendered blank, bleached white by the UV radiation of unfiltered sunlight on the lunar surface. Some of them may even have begun to physically disintegrate under the intense flux. America is left with no discernible space program while the Moon above us no longer flies a visible U.S. flag. How ironic. Read more: businessinsider/those-american-flags-we-left-on-the-moon-they-are-faded-to-white-by-now-2012-7#ixzz2Y82ucN3G
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 01:05:38 +0000
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