Okay, so as usual, I’m a day late and a dollar short. It was one week ago (plus 55 years!) that Neil and Buzz stepped their big boots on the Moon and shuffled around on the dusty regolith like puffy white Michelin men from an alien planet. And they were of course just that – aliens from planet Earth walking (well, bounding) on the surface of another celestial body for the first time in history. And if that’s not a reason for the largest newspaper headlines ever and the rapt focus of the entire world, I don’t know what is.
So I was reflecting on the magicalness of this truly momentous occasion by idly scrolling through news items on my phone when my thumbs stumbled across something that caught my eye. It was an iconic 55 year old photo of the unfurled American flag on a flag pole standing there a tad crookedly on the grey stark surface of the Moon. “What Became of the Flags Apollo Astronauts left on the Moon?” was the title of the article, and right away I was wondering the same thing.
I like flags. For a short while I used to hang the mighty Canadian Maple Leaf over my drum set and stick all my road cases and back packs with a Canadian flag decal or two. A couple of weeks ago as our personal Maple Leaf colors filled our living room window on Canada Day, it reminded me how some misguided undereducated dweezils have ruined the positive image of our beloved banner by flying the flag from big black trucks and shouting stupid slogans of misguided negative nonsense. It bugs me that when someone goes by with a Canadian flag flapping from the window of their car, I can’t tell if they are a conspiracy theory moron or a normal person who likes their country and our Red and White ensign.
C’mon dweezil morons, if you’re going to fly it, fly it upside down so you show your true colors. Also, it’s illegal to fly a flag upside down so that would be a nice reason for you to be arrested.
But I digress. The fascinating article by award-winning space journalist Leonard David traced all six flags that Apollo moonwalkers stuck on the Moon. They were all different sizes, and in fact, the Old Glory that Buzz and Neil erected was a $5.50 pennant purchased in Houston, Texas. Buzz said later that as he stuck the flagpole in the powdery surface the “subsoil was very dense” and it only stuck in “a couple of inches”. I can only imagine the fervor if that flag had’ve fallen over during the live TV Moon broadcast!
And as the inevitable conspiracy theorists were quick to point out, a flag can’t unfurl or flap on the windless moon so that was ‘yet another’ proof that the all those Moon landings from 1969-72 were ‘faked’. In our world of reality, the Moon flags flaplessness was remedied with a horizontal bar to hold the flag firmly and fully furled up there. And now that several countries have recently landed machines on the Moon, it won’t be that long before humans once again step on the lunar landscape and personally check out those permanent pennants, and fly their own. Because, even after 55 years, they are still there, not flapping in the non-breeze, waiting to be saluted once again.
Because even though those symbolic pieces of nylon cloth were placed there by Americans it doesn’t mean the Moon was ‘claimed’ by the U.S. Because the United Nations Treaty on Outer Space disallows any nation’s territorial claim on the Moon.
So someday, Canada will proudly mount the Maple Leaf on the Moon. I just hope they don’t hang it upside down.
Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.
