New Mexico has designated the Apollo 11 moon landing site as “cultural property” – a decision to officially assign the artifacts left behind at Tranquility Base in the official registry of the New Mexico Register of Cultural Properties.
The New Mexico Historic Preservation Division announced the decision today by the Cultural Properties Review Committee that voted unanimously to approve a nomination.
In late January of this year, California listed 106 objects left behind — including a spacecraft lander, a U.S. Flag, the lunar laser ranging retroflector, space boots and other items that had to be jettisoned to lighten Apollo’s load for the return trip to Earth—on its Register of Historical Properties.
“Every state has a connection to the exploration of space,” said Beth O’Leary, a leader in the effort and teaches a graduate-level Cultural Resource Management course at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.
“We feel that New Mexico has a very strong and current relationship to space exploration, especially Robert Goddard’s early launches in Roswell, the development of the V-2 rocket at White Sands Missile Range and the Spaceport in southern New Mexico,” said O’Leary.
The New Mexico nomination states that the Apollo 11 site is significant for its relation to the Cold War era, transportation and exploration.
The landing on July 20, 1969, happened during a turbulent period in U.S. history marked by massive dissent against the Vietnam War, cultural and social upheaval and political assassinations. The moon landing united most Americans, and much of the world, over the marvel of the first two humans to set foot on the lunar surface.
Planted back in 1960, the footprints of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin remain visible on the lunar surface.
New Mexico now formally recognizes the significance the first lunar landing and its ties to the history of New Mexico. It is part of the state’s official historic record.
For more information O’Leary and the university’s creative Lunar Legacy Project, visit:
http://spacegrant.nmsu.edu/lunarlegacies
By Leonard David