A little piece of North Carolina on the Moon, maybe

We will probably never know who really made the flags for the Moon landing, but following the clues in NASA's history archives, it is certainly plausible that the now faded fabric was made in the North Carolina mountains.

Posted 2:45 p.m. Jul 16, 2019 — Updated 2:45 p.m. Jul 16, 2019

Tony Rice

, WRAL contributor/NASA ambassador

While Article II of the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty makes it clear that the Moon “is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of occupation, or by any other means,” NASA knew it wanted Apollo astronauts to plant a flag as “symbolic gesture of national pride in achievement.”

What flag(s) the astronauts would or would not carry to the Moon was the subject of much debate at the time. Federal agencies, politicians and their constituents suggested the United States’, United Nations’ and religious flags. Some suggested that no flag at all be placed. The House of Representatives helped settled things with their NASA appropriations bill for fiscal year 1970, which included language prohibiting NASA from deploying any flag other than that of the United States.

In the end, a standard 3-by-5-foot nylon flag was planted with some difficulty by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Also along for the ride in the Lunar Module were 4-by-6-inch flags of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories, all United Nations member countries and several other nations, returned for presentation.

Symbolism aside, the task of planting the flag taught us something about the Moon. Armstrong and Aldrin found it difficult to push the specially designed pole into the lunar surface and were only able to force it about 7 inches into the surface. Unlike Earth soils, which are worn down over time by wind and rain, Lunar dust has sharp edges that catch on each other. That flag, along with the other five planted by astronauts, is at least bleached white by the harsh UV conditions and probably disintegrating.

There are a number of claims to the origin of these flags. But there is no way to prove exactly which company wove the fabric, manufactured the flag or sold it to NASA. That’s exactly the way NASA wanted it, to avoid a commercial product being advertised as being used by astronauts – or, as one NASA official put it, “We didn’t want another Tang.”

A NASA press release in July 1969 stated that “the Stars and Stripes to be deployed on the Moon was purchased along with several others made by different manufacturers at stores in the area around the Manned Spacecraft Center near Houston.”

A 1993 report by the Johnson Space Center’s history office found that three secretaries were sent out on their lunch break to purchase flags only to discover that they’d all bought them at Sears. Sears purchased their flags from Annin Flagmakers of Verona, New Jersey.

Notes by NASA engineers tasked to quickly design a pole for an off-the-shelf flag that astronauts could plant on the lunar surface (Credit: Jack Kinzler/NASA JSC History Office)

Research by the Johnson Space Center on the subject found notes from Jack Kinzler, chief of the technical services division tasked with building the custom flag pole needed to display the flag in the near vacuum on the Moon, indicating the flags were “purchased through a government supply catalog.” This would mean the flags were manufactured by Valley Forge Flag of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania with manufacturing facilities in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

But Valley Forge and Annin manufacture the flags from fabric woven elsewhere. That’s where two North Carolina towns that wove fabric for Annin and Valley Forge enter the story.

Former workers at the Burlington Industrial Fabrics’ Plant in Rhodhiss and Glen Raven Fabrics in Burnsville recall with pride bulletin board postings at the time saying their plants had woven the nylon fabric used in the flags. Company newsletters make similar claims. Glen Raven includes the claim on their website today. The welcome sign at the edge of Rhodhiss proclaims "US Moon Flags Woven Here," and the town logo features an astronaut planting a U.S. Flag.

Another company, Olympic Embroidery, Inc., of New York City, claims its “double sided embroidery technique so both sides of the flag read correctly” was called upon to create the flag placed by Neil Armstrong. Though, the only reference to this is the 2010 obituary of company owner Phyllis J. San Antonio. Still another account found in the 2015 obituary for Dolores Black claims to have sewn the Apollo flags while working for the Eder Flag Co. Black went on to claim she had added her name in an unseen seam.

Neither Olympic nor Eder appear in any NASA documentation.

Flag assembly and shroud built to protect the flag from 2,000 degree Fahrenheit temperatures during touchdown. (NASA photograph S69-38748).

So who really made the Moon flags? We will probably never know, but following the clues in NASA’s history archives, it is certainly plausible that the now faded fabric was made in the North Carolina mountains.

You can see one of the North Carolina flags that flew to the Moon on display at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. Another North Carolina flag that was recovered from the debris of the Space Shuttle Challenger is also on display near the end of the "One Giant Leap" exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History. The Town of Rhodhiss website plans a "Flag on the Moon Celebration" with fireworks and music.

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