Captured merchant marines in the Pacific were placed in Japanese POW camps and hell ships, just as members of the military.

I’ve seen them. I don’t believe this claim.

“This spaceship can do everything but fly” is not a huge selling point.

Nope. The boots were overshoes. Something like galoshes that gave them extra protection and traction while walking on the moon. (But I like to think they could just toss things out of the lunar lander’s screen door. /s)

Yes, but …

They had other material in the official kits as well, such as beta crew patches, additional flags, etc. And each astronaut was allowed a small inventory of personal artifacts for which there isn’t a manifest. Considering Neil and Buzz left their boots on the lunar surface due to weight concerns, you get an idea of how critical every pound was.

After the enormous treasure and lives lost to get the crew to the moon, they returned with less than 50 pounds of lunar rocks and soil crammed into their little capsule. Precious little. (There is a legend that all three were told if any of them gained five pounds before the flight, they would be scrubbed from the mission.)

On the command module, yes.

Ten years later? That wasn’t Nixon. That was Jimmy Carter.

Taiwan, as the Republic of China, was a founding member of the UN in 1945. Like everything else between Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of China, things got complicated over the ensuring years.

Edit to add: the US didn’t have formal relations with PRC in 1969. Nixon reestablished formal relations in 1972.

I don’t have that info. But that’s why most of the trinkets like this flag stayed with Mike Collins. The lunar lander didn’t have the capacity (room or fuel) to take them all the way to the moon’s surface and back. I mean, Buzz and Neil left lots of equipment and waste on the lunar surface just so they’d be able to get the lunar samples back to rendezvous.

To help share humanity’s historic accomplishment, President Nixon gifted flags and lunar samples to all member nations of the United Nations as well as each of the fifty U.S. states. The flags were aboard the command module Columbia with Mike Collins as it orbited the moon.