Some of it is waste from the trip that the astronauts dumped when they got to their destination. Aside from trash—from food packaging to wet wipes—nearly 100 packets of human urine and excrement have been discarded. The Apollo astronauts also dumped tools and television equipment that they no longer needed.
Every Apollo crew left behind seismometers, lots of geological tools, most of their cameras and their lunar module ascent stages. The Apollo 16 crew even left a gold-plated ultraviolet telescope. Apollos 11, 14 and 15 left the Laser Ranging RetroReflectors (LRRR) — and they still work.
The most famous thing Neil Armstrong left on the moon 35 years ago is a footprint, a boot-shaped depression in the gray moondust. Millions of people have seen pictures of it, and one day, years from now, lunar tourists will flock to the Sea of Tranquility to see it in person.
The lunar surface changes very slowly over time, and the changes we made in 1971 are still perceptible, virtually unchanged, today. The view of Apollo 14 is less spectacular, but perhaps even more famous. You can still see the descent module and the ALSEP equipment, but nothing else leaps out at you.
As Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin began their return journey to Earth, they disposed of anything they didn't need from the lunar module. This included the tube that the US flag had been rolled up in, the TV camera they'd used to send footage back to Earth, and the tools they'd used to gather moon rock and dust.
The Bible shown was left on the lunar rover in the Hadley Plains area of the Moon by Apollo 15 Mission Commander Colonel David R. Scott, a member of St. Christopher, August 2nd, 1971. the Bible was provided by the people of Saint Christopher Episcopal Church League City, Texas.
Roger Launius, the former NASA chief historian and a former senior curator at the National Air and Space Museum, agreed, saying, “there is no evidence to support the assertion that he left a bracelet of his daughter on the moon.” Though apparently fiction, the moment is a critical one.
Images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera more than 40 years later proved Aldrin right. Unlike the other Apollo sites, there is no longer an American flag still standing at the place where humankind first made contact with the lunar surface 50 years ago on July 20.
So, why haven't they sent humans back to the moon yet? The two primary causes are money and priorities. The race to put people on the moon was sparked in 1962 by US President John F. Kennedy's 'We Choose to Go to the Moon' address, in which he pledged that by the end of the decade, an American would walk on the moon'.
How many flags are on the Moon? A total of six flags have been planted on the Moon – one for each US Apollo landing.
Due to the resolution of the LRO cameras, shadows from the fabric of the flag can be seen but the pole cannot, showing that the flags did not disintegrate entirely. A photo review of the Apollo 11 site shows that Aldrin's observation that the flag fell over was likely correct, as no flag was seen in the images.
The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) was a battery powered "dune buggy" taken to the moon on Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17. The LRV was stowed on the descent stage of the Lunar Module and deployed upon arrival at the lunar surface. The LRV was operated with a spacecraft "stick," rather than a steering wheel.
In total, the moon hosts more than 400,000 pounds of man-made material, and we earthlings consistently add to that pile. Humans crash probes into the moon—a routine method for bringing unmanned missions to a close. And these crashes often leave behind a lot of trash.
There are some extremely valuable resources on the moon that could support such a lunar economy. Helium-3 is one moon resource that is rare on earth but much more abundant on the lunar surface and could potentially be cheaper to mine from the moon. Helium-3 is a very attractive fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors.
And the Moon may also have ores of rare, incompatible, lithophile elements such as beryllium, lithium, zirconium, niobium, tantalum, and so forth.
In 1966, the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the Luna 9 and Luna 13 missions. The U.S. followed with five uncrewed Surveyor soft landings.
Lunar lander and rover; first Chinese lunar landing, landed in Mare Imbrium with Yutu 1. Relay satellite located at the Earth-Moon L2 point in order to allow communications with Chang'e 4. Lunar lander and rover; first soft landing on the Far side of the Moon, landed in Von Karman crater with Yutu-2.
Taking the Moon's Temperature
Daytime temperatures near the lunar equator reach a boiling 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120° C, 400 K), while nighttime temperatures get to a chilly -208 degrees Fahrenheit (-130° C, 140 K). The Moon's poles are even colder.
Two reasons: it is very far away and unless you have a telephoto lens (which makes the moon appear closer than it is) it will always appear as a very small glowing dot in the frame. Secondly, shooting at night is really difficult.
The moon is a difficult target for Hubble because it moves across the sky faster than Hubble can track it and is very dim in ultraviolet light. The observations required steady, precise, as well as long exposures to search for the resources.
In reality, all Earth-based telescopes have a much lower practical magnification limit around 300 times. This means that under typical seeing conditions from the surface of the Earth and using a large telescope, the footprints on the surface of the moon are something like 1,000 times too small to be seen.
As he arrives on the moon, it's revealed that Armstrong has brought his daughter's bracelet with him, the same one he's seen holding at various points throughout the film. In one of First Man's most moving moments, he throws it into a giant crater before returning to complete his work.
How Much Armstrong Was Paid To Walk on the Moon. Armstrong's historic moonwalk lasted two hours and 40 minutes. Based on his salary and a 40-hour work week, that means he would have been paid roughly $33 for his time on the moon.
Armstrong and Aldrin collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia. SATCAT no. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.