Is the U.S. flag planted on the moon 40 years ago still standing?
That’s just one of many questions researchers hope will be answered this year by new pictures of old Apollo landing sites. A plan to photograph the historic lunar locations with NASA’s new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), revealed yesterday on SPACE.com, should be a boon to lunar archaeologists who aim to solve some longstanding mysteries and also get a historic-landmark designation for the Apollo 11 touchdown site. The first moon landing by the Apollo 11 crew took place July 20, 1969. The new photos, expected in coming days, weeks and months, will be of keen interest to archaeologists involved in the Lunar Legacy Project. They contend that Apollo 11’s Tranquility Base should be seen as an anthropological site and deserves preservation for all present and future inhabitants of the Earth. “Even after our research, I still think we don’t know exactly what is on the Tranquility Base site and how it is placed,” said Beth O’Leary in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at New Mex
