The Lunar Flag Assembly (LFA) was a kit containing a flag of the United States designed to be erected on the Moon during the Apollo program. Six such flag assemblies were planted on the Moon. The nylon flags were hung on telescoping staffs and horizontal bars constructed of one-inch anodized aluminum tubes. The flags were carried on the outside of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), most of them on the descent ladder inside a thermally insulated tubular case to protect them from exhaust gas temperatures calculated to reach . The assembly was designed and supervised by Jack Kinzler, head of technical services at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston, Texas. Six of the flags (including one for Apollo 13 which was not planted on the Moon) were ordered from a government supply catalog and measured ; the last one planted on the Moon was the slightly larger, -wide flag which had hung in the MSC Mission Operations Control Room for most of the Apollo program. Background Building on President John F. Kennedy's 1961 plan to land a man on the Moon in the 1960s and bring him safely back to Earth, in January 1969 President Richard Nixon set an international tone for the Apollo program in his inaugural address: This inspired an idea within NASA to have astronauts plant a United Nations flag on the first landing. Top brass at NASA were surveyed, and the overwhelming consensus was to plant an American flag. The American public was canvassed and supported the idea. Deke Slayton was fine with leaving symbolic items on the Moon as long as they did not affect the crew's training schedule and that the items met dimensional and weight requirements. Acting NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine created the Committee on Symbolic Activities for the First Lunar Landing and appointed Willis Shapley as the chair on February 25. Paine instructed the committee to select symbolic activities that would not jeopardize crew safety or interfere with mission objectives; that would "signalize the first lunar landing as an historic forward step of all mankind that has been accomplished by the United States", and that would not give the impression that the United States was "taking possession of the moon" in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The committee was to decide on three things: items to be brought to the Moon and left there, items to be