an astronaut on the moon next to an American flag and a moon vehicle

New Moon Race Endangers Historic Space Artifacts

As a private lunar industry nears liftoff, preservationists seek to guard the artifacts from the first space race.

In 2011 NASA made a nonbinding request that no craft land within a 1.2-mile buffer around the six Apollo sites. The agency still owns the rovers and other artifacts, but space law gives it no standing to protect iconic footprints such as those made by the last moonwalker, Gene Cernan (above), who said in 1972, “God willing…we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”
NASA
This story appears in the August 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine.
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