Apollo 11: Buzz Aldrin reveals how they planted the US flag on the Moon

The historical Apollo 11 mission took place in 1969, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first men on the Moon. In uncovered interview footage, Aldrin reveals something about the flag they planted on the Moon.

Express reports that in an interview in 1989, 20 years since the launch, Aldrin revealed that they were faced with a challenge when it came to planting the US flag on the Moon. One challenge was that they had to figure out a way to make the flag flap in space. Aldrin revealed that they had to create the breeze to make the flag flap on the surface of the Moon.

“The flag didn’t exactly perform as we put it together, it didn’t stick in the ground exactly as we thought it would...There was also no breeze to wave it, so we had to artificially create a little breeze,” recalled Aldrin. “So it was a great mixture of a sense of pride and will be a remembering event photographing individuals alongside the flag.”

As Aldrin and Armstrong carried out their experiments on the Moon, their colleague Michael Collins, spent 21 hours piloting the Command Module that was in orbit.

That was not the only thing the legendary astronauts ended up sharing about the iconic mission. In a BBC interview, Armstrong recalled what it was like on the surface of the Moon. Armstrong recalled that the color of the Moon’s surface depended on the angle that people view it, and likened it to what would be seen on a television set at the time, with the contrast on high. Armstrong explained that it was very black and white and that the more they went further into the light, the more they saw hues of gray.

However, more colors seemed to show if one went further into the lit part of the Moon where the Sun was already present. Armstrong also noted that the color of the samples he got from the lunar surface also changed. While on the Moon, they revealed that they had some trouble with their perception of distance because of the curvature of the moon.