Apollo 11 splashes down in Pacific - 50 years ago today

Is that some sort of decompression chamber in the last pic? How long did they have to stay in there?

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Is that some sort of decompression chamber in the last pic? How long did they have to stay in there?

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Quarantine chamber for potential space diseases. I believe they stayed a week.

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Quarantine chamber for potential space diseases. I believe they stayed a week.

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3 weeks. It was a converted Airstream trailer. Later flights 86'd the quarantine trailer.

the conspiracy theorists think these pics are fake

Splashdown and Quarantine

The aircraft carrier USS Hornet, under the command of Captain Carl J. Seiberlich, was selected as the primary recovery ship (PRS) for Apollo 11 on June 5, replacing its sister ship, the LPH USS Princeton, which had recovered Apollo 10 on May 26. Hornet was then at her home port of Long Beach, California. On reaching Pearl Harbor on July 5, Hornet embarked the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopters of HS-4, a unit which specialized in recovery of Apollo spacecraft, specialized divers of UDT Detachment Apollo, a 35-man NASA recovery team, and about 120 media representatives. To make room, most of Hornet's air wing was left behind in Long Beach. Special recovery equipment was also loaded, including a boilerplate command module used for training.

On July 12, with Apollo 11 still on the launch pad, Hornet departed Pearl Harbor for the recovery area in the central Pacific, in the vicinity of 10°36'N 172°24'E. A presidential party consisting of Nixon, Borman, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger flew to Johnston Atoll on Air Force One, then to the command ship USS Arlington in Marine One. After a night on board, they would fly to Hornet in Marine One for a few hours of ceremonies. On arrival aboard Hornet, the party was greeted by the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), Admiral John S. McCain Jr., and NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, who flew to Hornet from Pago Pago in one of Hornet's carrier onboard delivery aircraft.

Weather satellites were not yet common, but US Air Force Captain Hank Brandli had access to top secret spy satellite images. He realized that a storm front was headed for the Apollo recovery area. Poor visibility which could make locating the capsule, and strong upper level winds which “would have ripped their parachutes to shreds” according to Brandii; posed a serious threat to the safety of the mission. Brandli alerted Navy Captain Willard S. Houston Jr., the commander of the Fleet Weather Center at Pearl Harbor, who had the required security clearance. On their recommendation, Rear Admiral Donald C. Davis, commander of Manned Spaceflight Recovery Forces, Pacific, advised NASA to change the recovery area, each man risking their careers. A new location was selected 215 nautical miles (398 km) northeast.

This altered the flight plan. A different sequence of computer programs was used, one never before attempted. In a conventional entry, P64 was followed by P67. For a skip-out re-entry, P65 and P66 were employed to handle the exit and entry parts of the skip. In this case, because they were extending the re-entry but not actually skipping out, P66 was not invoked and instead P65 led directly to P67. The crew were also warned that they would not be in a full-lift (heads-down) attitude when they entered P67. The first program's acceleration subjected the astronauts to 6.5 standard gravities (64 m/s2); the second, to 6.0 standard gravities (59 m/s2).

Before dawn on July 24, Hornet launched four Sea King helicopters and three Grumman E-1 Tracers. Two of the E-1s were designated as "air boss" while the third acted as a communications relay aircraft. Two of the Sea Kings carried divers and recovery equipment. The third carried photographic equipment, and the fourth carried the decontamination swimmer and the flight surgeon. At 16:44 UTC (05:44 local time) Columbia's drogue parachutes were deployed. This was observed by the helicopters. Seven minutes later Columbia struck the water forcefully 2,660 km (1,440 nmi) east of Wake Island, 380 km (210 nmi) south of Johnston Atoll, and 24 km (13 nmi) from Hornet, at 13°19'N 169°9'W. 72 °F (22 °C) with 6 feet (1.8 m) seas and winds at 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph) from the east were reported under broken clouds at 1,500 feet (460 m) with visibility of 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) at the recovery site. Reconnaissance aircraft that flew to splashdown location originally planned reported conditions that Brandli and Houston had predicted.

During splashdown, Columbia landed upside down but was righted within ten minutes by flotation bags activated by the astronauts. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to prevent it from drifting. More divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and positioned rafts for astronaut extraction.

The divers then passed biological isolation garments (BIGs) to the astronauts, and assisted them into the life raft. The possibility of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, but NASA took precautions at the recovery site. The astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and Columbia wiped with Betadine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The astronauts were winched on board the recovery helicopter. BIGs were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board Hornet. The raft containing decontamination materials was intentionally sunk.

After touchdown on Hornet at 17:53 UTC, the helicopter was lowered by the elevator into the hangar bay, where the astronauts walked the 30 feet (9.1 m) to the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), where they would begin the Earth-based portion of their 21 days of quarantine.

This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life, and the quarantine process dropped. Nixon welcomed the astronauts back to Earth. He told them: "As a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before."

After Nixon departed, Hornet was brought alongside the 5-short-ton (4.5 t) Columbia, which was lifted aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. It was then attached to the MQF with a flexible tunnel, allowing the lunar samples, film, data tapes and other items to be removed. Hornet returned to Pearl Harbor, where the MQF was loaded onto a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and airlifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center. The astronauts arrived at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at 10:00 UTC on July 28. Columbia was taken to Ford Island for deactivation, and its pyrotechnics made safe. It was then taken to Hickham Air Force Base, from whence it was flown to Houston in a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, reaching the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on July 30.

In accordance with the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, a set of regulations promulgated by NASA on July 16 to codify its quarantine protocol,[182] the astronauts continued in quarantine. After three weeks in confinement (first in the Apollo spacecraft, then in their trailer on Hornet, and finally in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health.[183] On August 10, 1969, the Interagency Committee on Back Contamination met in Atlanta and lifted the quarantine on the astronauts, on those who had joined them in quarantine (NASA physician William Carpentier and MQF project engineer John Hirasaki), and on Columbia itself. Loose equipment from the spacecraft remained in isolation until the lunar samples were released for study.

The Russians have always landed on the land.

For anyone familiar with the Clear Lake area, this intersection in Webster is recognizable as Texas Highway 3 and NASA Road 1.

The quarantine trailer is coming from Ellington AFB, turning left toward Johnson Space Center.

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The Russians have always landed on the land.

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Since they've never walked on the moon, doesn't seem like they quite knew wtf they were doing...

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The Russians have always landed on the land.

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They had a lot more of it.