You probably think the Moon is just a big, grey rock. Boring, right? Well, if you look at the Moon Apollo landing sites through the lens of history, they’re basically the ultimate crime scenes—except the "crime" was the greatest engineering feat in human history. We left a lot of junk up there. Six different spots are littered with descent stages, lunar rovers, and even bags of human waste. It’s kinda gross when you think about it, but those sites are preserved in a vacuum, frozen in time.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin didn't just land anywhere. They picked the Sea of Tranquility because it was flat. Or, well, it was supposed to be flat.
The Messy Reality of Apollo 11 at Tranquility Base
Apollo 11 almost ended in a crash. Most people don't realize that Neil had to take manual control because the computer was steering them right into a boulder field. They landed with about 25 seconds of fuel left. If they'd run out, they wouldn't have landed; they would have fallen. Today, that site—Tranquility Base—is still there, untouched. Because there’s no wind on the Moon, the footprints are likely still crisp.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has actually flown over these Moon Apollo landing sites and taken photos. You can see the dark paths where the astronauts walked. It looks like little smudge marks on a dusty floor.
Honestly, the most human thing about Apollo 11 is the stuff they left behind. They didn't just leave a flag. They left a silicon disk with messages from 73 world leaders. They left a gold olive branch. They also left their boots. To save weight for the moon rocks they were bringing back, they literally stripped the Lunar Module of anything they didn't need. They tossed their overshoes and portable life-support backpacks right out the door onto the lunar surface.
Why Apollo 12 Hit the Bullseye
Then you’ve got Apollo 12. These guys were show-offs. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 probe, which had been sitting there since 1967. This proved we could do "pinpoint" landings. They actually walked over to the old probe and hacked a piece off it to bring back to Earth.
Scientists wanted to see how the materials held up after years of solar radiation. It turns out, space is harsh. The white paint had turned a weird shade of tan.
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The Mountainous Drama of the Later Moon Apollo Landing Sites
By the time we got to Apollo 15, NASA was getting cocky. They stopped landing in the flat "seas" and started aiming for the mountains. Apollo 15 landed at Hadley-Apennine. It’s gorgeous. You have the North Gallery and the Hadley Rille, which is basically a giant canyon formed by ancient lava.
Dave Scott and James Irwin were the first to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
Imagine driving a glorified golf cart on the edge of a 1,000-foot gorge. That’s what they did. They covered miles of ground. If you look at the high-res satellite imagery of the Moon Apollo landing sites today, the rover tracks from Apollo 15, 16, and 17 are the most visible features. They look like dual-lane highways carved into the dust.
Apollo 16 went to the Descartes Highlands. This was a bit of a curveball. Geologists thought they’d find volcanic rocks there, but they were wrong. It was all impact breccia—rocks smashed together by meteorite hits. It taught us that we didn't know nearly as much about lunar history as we thought.
The Final Footprint at Taurus-Littrow
Apollo 17 was the big one. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent three days there. Schmitt was a real geologist, not just a pilot who took a few classes. He found "orange soil," which was actually tiny beads of volcanic glass.
It’s the most complex of all the Moon Apollo landing sites.
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They stayed so long they actually got annoyed with the dust. Lunar dust is like crushed glass. It smells like spent gunpowder. It gets into everything. It wore down their space suits and jammed their tools. When Cernan stepped off the Moon for the last time, he left a camera pointing up at the sky. We actually have footage of them blasting off because they timed the camera to follow the ascent stage.
What’s Actually Left Up There?
People ask if the flags are still standing. Probably not.
The one at the Apollo 11 site was actually knocked over by the exhaust when the Ascent Stage took off. Buzz Aldrin saw it happen. The others are likely still standing, but they aren't red, white, and blue anymore. Between the intense UV radiation and the temperature swings (250°F in the sun to -250°F in the dark), the nylon has almost certainly been bleached bone-white.
Here is a quick rundown of what you’d find if you visited today:
- Descent Stages: The "legs" of the landers. They serve as the permanent base for the launch platforms.
- Lunar Rovers: Three of them are parked up there. Apollo 15, 16, and 17 left theirs behind.
- ALSEP Kits: These are the science experiments. Some of them, like the Lunar Laser Ranging Retroreflector, are still used today. Scientists on Earth bounce lasers off them to measure the exact distance to the Moon.
- Planted Objects: Family photos (Charlie Duke left one on Apollo 16), golf balls (Alan Shepard hit two), and even a small statue called the "Fallen Astronaut."
Protecting the History of Moon Apollo Landing Sites
There is a big debate right now about "lunar heritage." With private companies like SpaceX and Intuitive Machines headed back to the lunar surface, people are worried about "museum" sites being ruined. If a rocket lands too close to the Apollo 11 site, the exhaust could blast lunar dust at high speeds, essentially sandblasting the historic footprints into oblivion.
NASA has issued guidelines. They want "keep-out zones" around the Moon Apollo landing sites.
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It’s a weird legal grey area. According to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, no country can own the Moon. However, the stuff we left there is still technically U.S. government property. You can’t own the dirt, but you can own the junk on the dirt.
How to See Them for Yourself
You can't see the landers with a backyard telescope. Not even the Hubble Space Telescope is powerful enough to see something that small from Earth. To see the landers, you’d need a telescope with a mirror hundreds of meters wide.
The only way we see them is through orbiters.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the gold standard. Its Narrow Angle Camera has captured images where you can clearly see the shadow of the Lunar Module and the trails of the rover. If you’re a space nerd, these photos are the ultimate "I told you so" to the moon landing conspiracy theorists. The evidence is literally sitting there, gathering dust.
Mapping the Future
We are going back. The Artemis missions aren't aiming for the old Moon Apollo landing sites. They are looking at the South Pole. Why? Because there’s ice in the dark craters there. Ice means water. Water means oxygen and rocket fuel.
But even as we look forward, the Apollo sites remain our first "backyard" in the solar system. They are the only places off-world where humans have lived, slept, and even complained about the food.
Next Steps for Enthusiasts:
- Explore the LRO Gallery: Visit the official NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter website to view high-resolution, unedited photos of the Apollo 11 through 17 sites. Look for the "traverse maps" that plot exactly where the astronauts walked.
- Check the Lunar Laser Ranging Data: Look up the McDonald Observatory or the Apache Point Observatory. They still regularly bounce lasers off the reflectors left at the Apollo sites to track the Moon's orbit with millimeter precision.
- Study the Lunar Heritage Acts: Read up on the "One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act." It's a real piece of legislation designed to keep these sites safe from future lunar tourists and robotic missions.