A British engineer has claimed that he tricked astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into planting a British flag on the moon.
Keith Wright, from Nottingham, was an engineer at the Kennedy Space Centre working on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission.
He revealed that he secretly drew a tiny Union flag on a solar panel destined for the lunar surface because he ‘wanted to give Brits a bit of credit’.
After 50 years of keeping his secret, he told Carol Vorderman how he managed to send the flag to the moon and recounted his fascinating career with NASA.
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A British engineer has claimed that he tricked astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into planting a Union Flag on the moon. Keith Wright, from Nottingham, was an engineer at the Kennedy Space Centre working on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. Here, just after it was planted
Part of his role was to work on disposable scientific equipment, some of which he knew was going to be left on the moon.
‘We were working on the experiments that the astronauts were going to put on the lunar surface, he told the One show on BBC.
Mr Wright said that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin came into the facility for a run-through.
The American astronauts were shown a number of solar panels they would be planting on the moon so the team all decided to sign their names on the brackets.
‘I signed my name and I thought, well, I’ll put ‘UK’. Then I thought, I’ll draw a little Union Flag,’ he said.
‘So we had a little Union Flag sketched onto there, installed it on the experiment package and it went to the moon.’
‘We got a pen and signed our names and when I signed my name I thought ‘I’d better put ‘UK’.
‘We wanted to give Brits a bit of a credit, so I thought I’d also draw a little Union Flag.
Keith Wright, pictured, was an engineer at the Kennedy Space Centre working on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. He revealed that he secretly drew a Union Jack on a solar panel destined for the lunar surface because he ‘wanted to give Brits a bit of credit’
H e secretly ensured a little piece of Britishness made it to the moon, because he ‘wanted to give Brits a bit of credit’. Here, speaking to Carol Vorderman on the programme
Aldrin is shown deploying the Passive Seismic Experiments Package (PSEP) on the lunar surface. The PSEP was one of the experiments that were carried out during the lunar landing missions
Mr Wright said the US flag was planted first, before the astronauts laid down the solar panels. The engineer worked in the UK for de Havilland before winning a coveted job on the Apollo space missions. Here, he showed his signatures of the astronauts along with the other 26 British engineers who worked on the project
‘So I’ve a little Union Flag sketched onto there…installed it on the experiment package and it went to the moon.’
He said that the US flag was planted first, before the astronauts before laying down the solar panels, used as part of an experiment.
The engineer worked in the UK for de Havilland before winning a coveted job on the Apollo space missions and moving with his family to the US.
Known as the Passive Seismic Experiment, the solar cells were placed on the lunar surface to send data, measure seismic activity and physical properties of the lunar crust and interior.
Given the pressure and importance of the mission, Mr Wright said that Aldrin and Armstrong were composed and in good spirits.
‘Neil was very relaxed and quite jokey. We were concentrating so hard on doing our job, and seeing that they could do the job properly, it almost seemed normal. But, thinking about it afterwards, I did get their signatures,’ he said.
Mr Wright said that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin came into the facility for a run-through. The American astronauts were shown a number of solar panels they would be planting on the moon so the team all decided to sign their names on the brackets
Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, Apollo II mission, July 1969. Reflected in Aldrin’s visor are Neil Armstrong taking the photograph, the US flag, and the ‘Eagle’
Over 53 million households tuned in to watch this mission on TV, and over 530 million viewers worldwide watched the Moon landing.
Last year, the film First Man, a Neil Armstrong biopic starring Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy received criticism for omitting to put a scene in showing them planting the US flag on the moon with many critics saying that it was ‘unpatriotic’.
Among the critics of the film is Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who called the choice ‘total lunacy.’
Director Damien Chazelle said he did not mean to make a political statement by leaving the flag-planting moment out of the movie.
WHAT WAS THE APOLLO PROGRAM?
NASA photo taken on July 16, 1969 shows the huge, 363-foot tall Apollo 11 Spacecraft 107/Lunar Module S/Saturn 506) space vehicle launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), at 9:32 a.m. (EDT).
Apollo was the NASA programme that launched in 1961 and got man on the moon.
The first four flights tested the equipment for the Apollo Program and six of the other seven flights managed to land on the moon.
The first manned mission to the moon was Apollo 8 which circled around it on Christmas Eve in 1968 but did not land.
The crew of Apollo 9 spent ten days orbiting Earth and completed the first manned flight of the lunar module – the section of the Apollo rocket that would later land Neil Armstrong on the Moon.
The Apollo 11 mission was the first on to land on the moon on 20 July 1969.
The capsule landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, carrying mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilots Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.
Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the lunar surface while Collins remained in orbit around the moon.
When Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon, he said, ‘That’s one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind.’
Apollo 12 landed later that year on 19 November on the Ocean of Storms, writes NASA.
Apollo 13 was to be the third mission to land on the moon, but just under 56 hours into flight, an oxygen tank explosion forced the crew to cancel the lunar landing and move into the Aquarius lunar module to return back to Earth.
Apollo 15 was the ninth manned lunar mission in the Apollo space program, and considered at the time the most successful manned space flight up to that moment because of its long duration and greater emphasis on scientific exploration than had been possible on previous missions.
The last Apollo moon landing happened in 1972 after a total of 12 astronauts had touched down on the lunar surface.
Astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin unpacking experiments from the Lunar Module on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Photographed by Neil Armstrong, 20 July 1969
