The American flags on the moon are disintigrating.

[GarlicGuy]

Frankly, I am quite surprised they exist at all after all of these years.

From Yahoo: ( snippet )

The photos have stood the test of time: A spacesuit-clad Apollo astronaut stands proudly next to a red-white-and-blue American flag, his national trophy telling the lonely world "the United States was here."

Unfortunately, all six flags they planted from 1969 through 1972 haven't fared so well.

Images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2012 do show that at least five out six flags still stand. However, scientists think decades' worth of brilliant sunlight have bleached out their emblematic colors.

The result? The flags are probably completely bone-white by now, as we first learned from Gizmodo. But their condition may be even worse than that.

Each one of the flags was made by the company Annin Flagmakers, woven out of rayon, and cost NASA $5.50 (more than $32.00 when adjusted for inflation). On the surface of Earth, such flags fade in sunlight. That's because ultraviolet light — the same wavelength that causes sunburn — isn't fully absorbed by our planet's atmosphere, and it excels at breaking down fibers and colors.

[the game]

It's ok, we'll go back and put more up there.

[Mister Cheese]

So now they're french flags?

[Darsithis]

I wasn't expecting them to last forever. Space is vast..and empty, but the space around our system is filled with light from the sun, radiation, solar flares...it can only last so long.

I volunteer to plant more!

[Independent voter]

We need to leave a gun up there. .45ACP for people with manly wrists.

[belfpala]

We need to leave a gun up there.

We should put a dick on Mars too, if waving something is the goal.

[Ahhdurr]

So now they're french flags?

Clever girl.

[sonololo]

Let's draw the football field-sized flag on the Moon surface.

[Glnger]

If I ever win the lottery (I don't play) I'm going to bank it until I'm about to die, then I'm going to flat out buy a nation (that shipping container on an oil platform in the English isles maybe) and fund a mission to send and bury my ashes on Mars, with my own nation's flag... just so I can do a little "Simpsons did it" type grab in the halls of fame.

[Kaleredar]

We should put a dick on Mars too, if waving something is the goal.

NASA already did that

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3148422.html

[kneehidude]

So now they're french flags?

I see what you did there!

[Super Kami Dende]

This is an affront to America, I move to immediately nuke the Moon.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Why a new flag? Trump is just dying to write his name on the moon so its legible from the earth.

I think if Trump ever decided to give NASA any funding, it would be to do that and that alone.

[ringpriest]

The plaques are likely in considerably better shape (and hold better sentiments in any case - in a few centuries, there will be academic debates over whether the flags were intended to bleach and disintegrate from the beginning).

[PACOX]

How can the disintegrate if they aren't even up there?

/tinfoilhat

[Ahovv]

This is one of those times where my care meter didn't even move.

[Calfredd]

Why a new flag? Trump is just dying to write his name on the moon so its legible from the earth.

I think if Trump ever decided to give NASA any funding, it would be to do that and that alone.

Like that?

[zenkai]

Frankly, I am quite surprised they exist at all after all of these years.

From Yahoo: ( snippet )

The photos have stood the test of time: A spacesuit-clad Apollo astronaut stands proudly next to a red-white-and-blue American flag, his national trophy telling the lonely world "the United States was here."

Unfortunately, all six flags they planted from 1969 through 1972 haven't fared so well.

Images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2012 do show that at least five out six flags still stand. However, scientists think decades' worth of brilliant sunlight have bleached out their emblematic colors.

The result? The flags are probably completely bone-white by now, as we first learned from Gizmodo. But their condition may be even worse than that.

Each one of the flags was made by the company Annin Flagmakers, woven out of rayon, and cost NASA $5.50 (more than $32.00 when adjusted for inflation). On the surface of Earth, such flags fade in sunlight. That's because ultraviolet light — the same wavelength that causes sunburn — isn't fully absorbed by our planet's atmosphere, and it excels at breaking down fibers and colors.

I'm sad that there is no link.

[Darsithis]

You forgot all the meteors and micrometeorites that gave the moon its appearance. The moon is constantly being hit.

Perhaps from a comet's tail, but wouldn't the Earth shield the moon from most of that due to our considerably higher gravity? Though I guess maybe not since if the moon is between the object and us, it would smash into the moon...

[Darsithis]

The moon shields the Earth to a degree, but the moon has all those craters for a reason.

Does a piss-poor job of it, poor dinosaurs...