The flag was a 3x5 foot commercial nylon flag, most likely manufactured by Annin and purchased through retail channels. A hem was added to the top edge of the fabric. An aluminum rod was threaded through the hem. At the "star" end of the flag (the edge closest to the flag pole) the rod was connected to a locking hinge at the top of the upper pole segment. The bottom corners were folded up at 45 degree angles and the fabric was rolled around the aluminum rod. This was placed in a sleeve and attached to the LM landing strut. This is the flight configuration of the flag.

To deploy the flag, the flag was unrolled from around the pole, and the lower corners were unfolded. The upper segment was screwed into the lower segment which had been pounded into the lunar regolith with a geology hammer. (On Apollo 11 the pole was a single shaft. Because the compacted density of the lunar regolith had not been fully estimated, later missions' flag poles were segmented to allow the pole to be fixed in the regolith by hammering.)

The rod through the top hem was raised to the horizontal position whereupon the hinge locked to hold it in that position. (Apollo 14's hinge malfunctioned, leaving the flag hanging limply.) The bottom inside corner of the flag was attached to the pole. Thus only one corner -- the lower outside corner -- was free to move.

The wrinkles are indeed due to "fabric memory" caused by the peculiar folding and tight packing of the fabric. In most photos the lower outside corner retains a visible crease from the 45-degree angle at which it was folded. Owners of nylon flags can attest to the presence of fabric memory when the fabric is tightly folded. When I purchased my flag, it had likely been folded in its packaging for weeks or months. The creases took approximately 72 hours to "hang out" in earth gravity.

Further, a nylon flag will never appear perfectly smooth. This same flag has flown outside my house every day for six months and still has a faintly rumpled appearance. This, I surmise, is due to the distortions and tension differentials across the surface caused by the stitching. The location of the rumples correlates most closely to seams between stripes and other panels.

The astronauts generally felt that the rumpled flag looked more natural than a tightly-stretched one, so they intentionally did not make a great attempt to smooth out the wrinkles.

Imagine the flag in its deployed position. Draw an imaginary line from the upper outside corner diagonally to the lower inside corner. The triangular portion of the flag above this line represents a planar segment fixed at all three corners. It is thus not expected to be able to move. The triangular portion below this line is fixed at two corners only, and so can rotate about the axis formed by the imaginary line.

(It is of course possible that the upper portion can move because various forces will cause torsion in the hinge despite the lock, and the rod can be deflected inertially by the displacement of the pole. But we recognize that the principle motion will be observed in the segment of the flag which has the greatest mechanical degree of freedom.)

The resulting physical system closely resembles a pendulum. As can be easily confirmed by intuition and experiment, moving the fulcrum of a pendulum adds energy to the system which results in either greater or lesser pendulum motion, depending on the vector analysis of the two motions. A stationary pendulum can be made to oscillate by sharply moving its fulcrum.

Thus by twisting the flagpole to more deeply seat it in the regolith, or by deflecting the pole to adjust the center of mass, high delta-v displacements will be induced at the outer tip of the horizontal rod. The free corner of the flag beneath will respond inertially by oscillating in a pendulum-like fashion.

It is ironic to hear contentions that the flag motion in the Apollo films and videos is due to the presence of an atmosphere. My empirical tests of mounting the flag in an Apollo-like manner and repeating the motions of the astronauts have shown that you cannot duplicate the motion of the flag in an atmosphere because the atmosphere damps the pendulous oscillations of the flag. The greater gravity on earth limits the amplitude of the oscillation anyway. The exaggerated oscillations of the flag's free corner in Apollo videos seems only possible in diminished gravity and in a vacuum.

It is, of course, ludicrous to argue that the motions of the flag in the videos are caused by wind currents. The flag only "flutters" when an astronaut is manipulating the flagpole. This clearly indicates and inertial response rather than gas pressure loading. Unless, of course, the hoax beleivers wish to theorize why the wind is blowing only when the astronaut is holding the flagpole.

In summary, the expectation that the flag shouldn't be fluttering is based on an ignorance of the principles of physics governing the system. I believe it is up to the hoax believers to provide a physics-based explanation for why the flag shouldn't flutter.