See the objects humans left behind on the moon

The first flag was planted during the Apollo 11 mission and is when the iconic image of Buzz Aldrin saluting the American flag on the moon’s surface was born. Due to impending moon exploration, which could include the Artemis III mission and others, NASA developed guidelines to protect previous landing locations, and President Donald Trump even signed a law making it illegal to interfere with any of the historic sites. Orbiting some 238,855 miles away from Earth, the moon is the planet’s only natural satellite, but during the last six decades, the celestial body has become home to thousands of pounds of human-made materials, collecting dust and waiting out time until future exploration. Meghan earned an MA in science journalism from New York University and a BA in classics from Georgetown University, and in her free time she enjoys reading and visiting museums. “It was certainly part of the Cold War history, but it was also about taking human behavior onto a celestial body no one had ever been before. We take our culture with us, we take our ideas and our hopes and aspirations anywhere we go.”

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It was meant to celebrate the moon landing as a triumph for all of humanity, despite the Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union that had originally ignited the race to the moon. “The journey of the astronauts is more than a technical achievement; it is a reaching-out of the human spirit,” the message from Nixon read. Space was at a premium in the cramped lunar modules, and the astronauts needed to make room for moon rocks they brought to Earth. Comparisons with samples returned by the Soviet Union’s robotic Luna program further validate their lunar origin. Apollo missions returned 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of Moon rocks to Earth.

• The camera, as an artifact, demonstrates that “one of the important parts of the Apollo program was not just the activity that was happening on the lunar surface, but it was also the global audience back on Earth following the flight.”
• “It was certainly part of the Cold War history, but it was also about taking human behavior onto a celestial body no one had ever been before. We take our culture with us, we take our ideas and our hopes and aspirations anywhere we go.”
• Apollo 11, for example, carried not just the famous flag the astronauts planted.
• But the astronauts didn’t stop at honoring Americans who had died in the space program.

Evidence left behind by the Apollo missions is still visible on the Moon

Many of the objects are small, and due to the lack of an atmosphere and no winds on the moon’s surface, there aren’t many chances, outside of a best betting app for cricket meteoroid strike, for items to move around. Revisiting the bags after their long years on the moon’s surface could also help scientists understand how the harsh lunar environment would affect a human body, she said, turning them into after-the-fact experiments of a sort. “But in some ways, it encodes as much, if not more, information because human body residues are rich in information about the diet of those astronauts in space and the effect on their bodies.” The astronauts left many objects behind out of necessity. The lunar module sported a commemorative plaque honoring the landing and the mission also carried a silicon disk inscribed with comments from the leaders of 74 countries.

With missions planned in the near future, nations and industry actors can choose to consider space history as they approach these flights, rather than trying to salvage it after the fact, she adds. It also remains possible that a spacecraft might inadvertently destroy some of the lunar artifacts, perhaps by landing too close to the historic sites. The later missions left behind battery-powered, four-wheeled rovers roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle that could shuttle astronauts around the moon. As a result, each of the six lunar landing sites from NASA’s Apollo program contains an assortment of discarded items. In just 50 years the human footprint has certainly left an impression on the lunar surface—in more ways than one. In exchange for what they left behind, the Apollo missions were able to bring back some 850 pounds of Moon rocks and lunar soil.

But across the surface of the moon, these motley artifacts contain clues to a history of courage, ingenuity, exploration and unprecedented achievement. Some of the items left behind are highly intentional and sentimental, including a Bible and a photo of astronaut Charles Duke’s family. Beyond these known objects, any traces of the astronauts that have yet to be discovered, such as the possibility they carved their initials into the regolith, “tell us a lot about humanity,” she adds. “Our history … is the most valuable and most vulnerable resource we have on the moon right now,” says Michelle Hanlon, co-founder and CEO of For All Moonkind, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting lunar landing sites. These items are part of the breadcrumb trail that tells the story of humans in space. To make it off the moon’s surface and rejoin the command module in orbit, they needed to keep their spacecraft light to conserve fuel and make space for heavy samples of lunar rocks.

Things Astronauts Left on the Moon

Unlike Earth, the moon lacks wind, water, and atmospheric disturbances, meaning the artifacts left by the Apollo astronauts remain in pristine condition. For skeptics and the curious alike, there are numerous artifacts that silently testify to these groundbreaking missions. They are used to carry out the transmission of a communication, provide you with the requested services or are set in response to actions made by you, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms.

“They were deliberately trying to lose mass because they were very limited in fuel to get back off the lunar surface,” says Chris Impey, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. “Almost everything they left behind, including their waste products, are still preserved on the surface.” There was no bathroom on the Apollo spacecraft, so astronauts relied on a basic system using a plastic bag taped to their buttocks for in-flight fecal collection. While other science instruments left on the moon fell silent years ago, this experiment is remarkably still operational.

This disc, about the size of a half-dollar coin, was transported in an aluminum capsule that Neil Armstrong and Aldrin left on the Sea of Tranquillity. Apollo 11 astronauts carried a small silicon disc etched microscopically with goodwill messages from four U.S. presidents—Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. “Weight was critical—we had to keep it down so we could get back off the surface of the moon.” Author Charles Fishman talks about how the Apollo 11 astronauts discovered one strange thing about the moon, that it has a smell.

Scott left it alongside a plaque memorializing eight American astronauts and six Soviet cosmonauts killed during previous missions. The first picture Neil Armstrong took after landing on the moon shows a jettisoned waste bag—likely with poop inside—one among 96 such bags that Apollo astronauts discarded on the moon across six missions. These include heavy descent stages of the lunar modules from each mission, which served as the launchpads for astronauts’ return journeys, various science experiments, and memorabilia such as American flags, mission patches as well as a family photograph. Scattered across the lunar surface are tools, spacecraft parts, flags, and even footprints—undisturbed reminders of human exploration.