In July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history as the first humans to walk on the surface of the Moon. Five more manned missions reached the moon in the following years before the Apollo program ended in 1972. What did men leave on the moon?
To date, 24 astronauts (all Americans) have visited the Moon, 12 of whom have walked on its surface, and more astronauts are scheduled to do so as part of the Artemis space program, launched in 2017. These are being added to numerous missions unmanned, starting with the Soviet Luna 2 probe, which was the first to crash land on the Moon, in 1959. ?
In total, mankind has sent about 225,000 kilograms of human artifacts to the surface of our natural satellite.
What did people leave on the moon?
Some of what humans have left on the moon is obvious. More than 70 remain on the Moon, simply because they are heavy and the cost of bringing them back is too high. They make up most of the mass left there.
Another part consists of the waste produced during the journey, which the astronauts threw away at their destination. In addition to trash, from food wrappers to wet wipes, nearly 100 packets of human urine and excrement were dumped there, .
Why was so much stuff left on the moon?
The astronauts also left behind tools and television equipment they no longer needed. They were shedding extra weight from their command modules to maximize the amount of lunar surface samples they could bring back to Earth. In exchange for what they left behind, the Apollo missions managed to bring back about 385 kilograms of selenary rocks and soil.
Then there are the souvenirs. Six American flags have been planted on the surface of the Moon. They are most likely faded now, just like the photo Charles Duke left there of himself and his family. Also, two golf balls are somewhere on the moon after Alan Shepard tried to hit one in low gravity.
What did people leave on the moon? The Apollo 11 landing module
The landing module of the Apollo 11 mission is still there, marked with a plaque that reads: “Here men from planet Earth first stepped on the moon in July 1969 AD. I have come in peace for all mankind.”
The message highlights the triumph of the moon landing for all of humanity, opening new frontiers despite the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had started the space race to the moon. In the same spirit, the American astronauts left two medals that had been awarded to Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov, space pioneers who perished in tragic accidents.
Gagarin and Komarov were not the last people commemorated on the Moon. In 1998, astrogeologist Gene Shoemaker’s ashes were sent to the Moon on an exploratory mission, where they now rest among the lunar dust.
In just 50 years, mankind has definitely left its mark on the lunar surface, . One of the most famous images from the Moon is the photo of Buzz Aldrin’s footprints. Given that there is almost no atmosphere on the Moon (and thus no wind to erode the soil), that trace is probably still there. As NASA aims to resume manned missions to the moon by 2025, it’s almost certain that humans will leave more footprints in the years to come.
