Fact #135
Missions
Apollo 15 left a small aluminium figure of a person lying down, next to a plaque listing fourteen astronauts and cosmonauts who had died.
It is about eight centimetres tall, made by the Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck, and the crew placed it quietly at the end of the last moonwalk. The list includes Soviet names at the height of the space race, which is the part worth noticing. A replica is in the National Air and Space Museum.
Source: National Air and Space Museum, Fallen Astronaut · checked Sep 2026