Flag Waving on the Moon

[Kiwi]

...when there's nobody there.

On the commentary track of the DVD "For All Mankind", Gene Cernan mentions the flag waving in the view from the Apollo 17 lunar module at pitchover after it left the moon. By pausing the film and stepping through frame by frame, the shadow of the flag can be seen rotating from approximately 8 o'clock to 11 o'clock.

1:12:37 Gene Cernan: This is the first real pictures we've ever had of the liftoff. 1:12:40 I set the lunar module [he means the rover] about a mile behind the LM. 1:12:43 The camera was operated remotely from the ground. 1:12:46 We're in there, that's the valley, that was our Camelot, we're ready to leave. 1:12:49 And we left with a tremendous bang and lifted off so quickly that they had to start the camera about a second and a half early just to keep up with us as we lifted off the surface. 1:13:03 We used the descent stage as a launching platform. 1:13:09 There it is — you can see the flag wave [from the Apollo 14 liftoff film] — and there we're on our way and as we look back down [Apollo 17 again], if you look at some of the movies that we took down there we can actually see the flag still standing. 1:13:17 There it is, still waving [at pitchover] as we blew off, and there's our launching platform, there's that nostalgic place, place I called home, which I'd love to go back to one of these days, and probably as pristine and as undisturbed as the day we left it. 1:13:35

[BertL]

Let's wave back.

[bughead]

bertls said:

Let's wave back.

Every night, Bert! I wave back every night!

I get a thrill looking up and knowing that those artifacts are there for history.

Others make goofy predictions on this board, so here's mine:
Someday, well-meaning do-gooders will organize "save the rovers" campaigns, to protect the Apollo equipment from mindless industrial growth.

[PhantomWolf]

I get a thrill looking up and knowing that those artifacts are there for history.

Well the flags are likely to have disintergrated years ago.

[bughead]

Admittedly, the unfiltered sunlight would have destroyed the plasticity of the 1960s nylon by now, but there's no wind, and the gravity is less. I think they're sitting on the pole JUST ABOUT to crumble, just one little touch and they're gone. Like ashes, chemically changed and maybe wrinkled from plasticizers leaving in uneven patterns, but still sitting there.

On the other hand, the thermal cycling of the pole might have vibrated enough to shake them apart by now.

Ah, well, there's still the rovers.

[PhantomWolf]

I think that you'd find that even in the lowered gravity, their weight would have been enough to pull them apart as the UV and temperuature extremes damaged the nylon's chemical bonding. It is sad yes, but the rovers, the descent stages, the footprints, the experiments that were left behind, the rover tracks. They'll all still be there. Perhaps even the discared parts of the space suit, though it's possible they have degraded too.

[Kiwi]

Yep, I'm often amused by the HB's who, in their ignorance, claim that all "they" have to do is train the world's biggest telescope on the moon and then we will see the flags, LM descent stages and rovers. Besides not knowing that no telescope is powerful enough to manage the feat, the HBs seem to forget that, if they were actually still hanging there, we would be looking down on the flags so they wouldn't be presenting much of a face to us.

Their intellects don't seem to extend as far as being able to work out that a nylon flag left on the moon over 30 years ago in the full blast of unfiltered sunlight for over 15 years total is more likely to be a line of white powder on the ground. Depending on exactly how the Apollo 11 flag fell, it may be a small sheet of powder.

By the way, I heartily recommend the DVD of "For All Mankind" to anyone who is interested in Apollo. The images are spectacular, the astronauts' comments in the main film are educational and some are very moving, the bonus commentary track by Al Reinert and Gene Cernan is very enlightening, and Al Bean's paintings a wonderful bonus. It is a DVD which can be watched over and over -- I'm nowhere near tired of it after six viewings and doubt that I will be after six more. It is excellent for showing to people who weren't alive at the time or have little understanding of Apollo.

Just don't take everything in the film as gospel and appreciate that most of is "for illustration only" -- a work of art and not an exact documentary.

For instance, for "landing" film, Reinert shows part of the Apollo 11 ascent film in reverse, and many times the dialogue and actions don't match, sometimes being from different missions. He also shows Ed White's Gemini 4 EVA and spent a lot of effort taking out the jitters produced by the faulty movie camera.

Details at
www.criterionco.com

I can provide a transcript of the commentaries in the main film if anyone wants it, complete with astronauts' names which aren't given in the film, and I've transcribed a little of the Reinert/Cernan track as well, as can be seen in Post No. 1. Just send me a personal message.