        He had felt his heart swell with pride as the second astronaut came out of the lander, and they planted the flag.  There was the flag of his country flying proudly on the surface of the moon.  Sure, it was a bit passé—planting flags seemed more of a climbing-a-mountain or reaching-the-south-pole kind of event—but there it was.  If aliens ever found it, they would know it was us, not those filthy communists who had landed on the moon first, and claimed it as our own.