March 3, 2011 - 4:39pm
Michigan Myth: Is there a University flag on the Moon?
BY KYLE SWANSON
Though many myths permeate different corners of campus, there is one that almost every student, alum, parent or visitor has heard at one time or another — a University of Michigan flag stands proudly on the moon.
Unfortunately for Wolverines everywhere, the myth isn’t true.
And while such a revelation may crush students, faculty and staff across campus who believe the legend, they can all take comfort in knowing that even the University President was disappointed to find out it's just a myth.
In an interview last month, University President Mary Sue Coleman said she believed the rumor.
“Oh yes, I believe there is (a Michigan flag on the moon),” Coleman said. “It was planted there by the astronauts, by the Michigan team.”
But once told the truth — that no University of Michigan flag has ever left a space shuttle, though several have left the earth’s atmosphere — Coleman said she was shocked.
“Oh really?” Coleman asked. “I thought it was true. I could have bet you just about any amount of money that it was true.”
Coleman isn’t the only one confident in the veracity of the myth.
In fact, one Facebook group, “Oh Ya? Well We Have a Flag On the Moon Bitches,” currently has 363 members. On the other hand, only 32 people are members of the “People Who Are Real Mad That We Actually Don’t Have A Flag On The Moon” Facebook group.
If there was any doubt about the fact that the flags did return to Earth, skeptics need look no further than Harm Buning, a professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at the University. During an interview with The Michigan Daily in 2006, he proudly displayed one of the University flags that made the historic Apollo 15 journey in 1971.
At the time, Buning explained that 20 flags bearing the University’s seal were sent to the moon with Apollo 15, though all safely returned to Earth without leaving the shuttle. The flags’ journey so close to the lunar surface is what has led many to speculate that one remains there today.
