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I got to wondering the other day. Before 9-11, say sometime durring the clinton administration. If the US went to the moon, would we still raise an american flag, or would that be view as to insensitive? Would it change if there was a republican in office?

Your thoughts?

We'd probably raise a love banner with all the flags of the world on it. With happy peacelove flowers on it. And it would be pink. Neil Armstrong is replaced by Kofi Annan, and tranquility base is called Microsoft field. The lunar lander is renamed from "Eagle 1" (Or eagle whatever-it-was) to the Nike module 1 and the spacesuits are adorned with so many sponsor labels, nobody even SEES the american flag on the shoulder.

Why would it be insensitive?

If Americans did it, why shouldn't they be allowed to raise their flag. If some other country did it, then they can put there flag there too.

Don't the mars rovers have the US flag? If a U.S. crew goes to the moon, they'll raise an american flag. If a multinational crew goes, they'll raise a bunch.

If this in relation to the US flag snafu in Baghdad: Lowering the Iraqi flag and raising an American one is a sign of conquest. It kinda looked bad to the Iraqis because even if the soldiers associated the Iraqi flag with Saddam, the Iraqis don't.

We would raise a flag. There is nothing insensitive about it. Pre or post 9/11.

What would be insensitive would be to offer sinage rights to corporate sponsors. COCA-COLA presents LUNAR MISSION 2003 !!

Heck, unless NASA gets their act together and starts getting better funding, we will be giving signage rights to have banners on the launch pads...

My first instinct was to say, "Of course we'd raise the flag--showing the US flag is pretty common in the US." On second thought, I'm not so sure. If we had never gone in the 60's and were going for the first time in 2003 (hence no one has ever seen the powerful symbol of the first landing), there might be enough people in charge who would view that as too territorial, or who simply want to avoid any hint of controversy. However, the general populous wouldn’t see anything wrong with raising the flag on the Moon, and there may even be a backlash against whoever ordered the crew not to raise the flag.

I suspect that there definitely would be different people in the crew--more minorities and females.

I love the idea of corporate sponsorship of future lunar missions. Could save the taxpayers money.