55 Years Ago Today: Apollo 11 Splashdown (July 24, 1969)

NASA, Misc | 24 July, 2024

[Ezekiel]

On July 24, 1969, Apollo 11 was 47,000 miles from Earth and rapidly accelerating toward its home planet when astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins awoke for their last day in space, preparing for their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean 950 miles southwest of Hawaii. The previous day, managers were forced to move the splashdown point by 250 miles to the northeast due to inclement weather at the original recovery site.

The aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVS-12), the prime recovery ship for Apollo 11, was speeding for the new splashdown target area. Overcast skies made stellar navigation impossible, so Hornet used the ancient mariner’s technique of dead reckoning to arrive on time and at the proper position to recover crew and spacecraft. Hornet’s commanding officer Capt. Carl J. Seiberlich chose the slogan Hornet Plus 3 for the operation, signifying the safe recovery of the three Apollo 11 astronauts.

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Columbia in Stable 2 position shortly after splashdown. Credit: US Navy Mitch Bucklew.

Initially, Columbia assumed the Stable 2 position in the water, with the spacecraft’s apex pointing downward. Within a few minutes, three flotation bags inflated to right the spacecraft. Then began a carefully choreographed and intensively rehearsed process to recover the astronauts and the capsule from the ocean and transport them to Hornet. Unlike previous recoveries, Apollo 11’s was more complicated due to the back-contamination prevention measures that had to be strictly adhered to.

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Lots more, with photos (from 2019):

https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-hornet-3-the-recovery-of-apollo-11/

***

Back from the Moon, Apollo Astronauts Had to Go Through Customs

"Yes, it's authentic," NASA spokesperson John Yembrick told Space.com. "It was a little joke at the time."

https://www.space.com/7044-moon-apollo-astronauts-customs.html

***

Locations of Pacific Ocean splashdowns of American spacecraft

Splashdown

[Blueway]

We were at Hickam AFB when they brought in the isolation trailers containing the astronauts.
As I recall, President Nixon was there to welcome them home.
I think the trailers were loaded onto C-141s to take them back to the mainland.

[rx]

We may be assured Aldrin had expenses for his threesome’s journey into low Earth orbit. These prove nothing.

I suggest you did not think this through.

[NorthMountain]

I suggest that you should quit displaying your ignorance, and that you did not think this through.

[NorthMountain]

Back when “we” had a sense of humor, as well as a sense of seriousness.

[Responsibility2nd]

I was going to ping you. See post 3.

But I knew you’d show up.

[Ezekiel]

America was still that “shining city on a hill”, and possibilities were endless.

The best is yet to come.

That's one small step for man
One giant leap for mankind.

That was no ordinary announcement. Those were the first words from the first man to walk on the Moon, which is symbolic of the Kingdom of David.

The stuff that just sits there:

U.S. Space & Rocket Center

Like the two-person rule, it's an art and a science.

Amos 9:11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:

All a big fake-out? Well now, that would be an even more ingenious plotline from the one who's been in charge of the script the whole time.

😋🍿

[Fiji Hill]

Rocket to the Moon--Moon Mullican (1953)

Rocket to the Moon--Tony Perkins (1957)

Rocket to the Moon--Lenny Welch (1958)

[Paal Gulli]

What these pinheads don't get is the hardest part of the whole show was the launch vehicle itself. Saturn V was the most powerful, most complex (>3 million parts) and most expensive machine ever built (to that time). The biggest part of the moon program was the hundreds of baby steps (and dozens of failures) from Von Braun's V2 to the Saturn Rockets. Six million pounds of rocket burning 20 tons of fuel per second to propel a 110,000-lb package to escape velocity. Each first stage engine had to have its own gas turbine engine driving its fuel pumps so the monster F1 rocket engines never had to wait for fuel.

Once NASA had a reliable launch platform, the rest was a doodle. And the tens of thousands of observers who were in Central Florida for the event were eye-witness to its success.

From: https://www.fastcompany.com/90375425/apollo-11-landed-moon-how-you-can-be-sure-sorry-conspiracy

"...If the United States had been faking the Moon landings, one group would not have been in on the conspiracy: The Soviets.

The Soviet Union would have revealed any fraud in the blink of an eye, and not just without hesitation, but with joy and satisfaction.

In fact, the Russians did just the opposite. The Soviet Union was one of the few places on Earth (along with China and North Korea) where ordinary people couldn't watch the landing of Apollo 11 and the Moon walk in real time. It was real enough for the Russians that they didn't let their own people see it.

That's all the proof you need. If the Moon landings had been faked - indeed, if any part of them had been made up, or even exaggerated - the Soviets would have told the world. They were watching. Right to the end, they had their own ambitions to be first to the Moon, in the only way they could muster at that point.

And that's a kind of proof that the conspiracy-meisters cannot wriggle around...."

Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings#Independent_evidence

[Monterrosa-24]

Sonny Mathews was a top launch engineer for the Saturn program. He was raised in Humphrey, Arkansas (near Stuttgart), one of seven children, and went into the Air Force and MIT. From the sloughs of Arkansas to MIT was something of an American success story and the Saturn program made it more so.

Thank you for explaining something of the complexity of the launch vehicle.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Sorry I was late. Been too busy asking people why the Trump Assassination Crime scene has been completely spoliated and sanitized so that no investigation can take place

[1Old Pro]

I remember. I was 11 years old, Nixon was President, America was still that “shining city on a hill”, and possibilities were endless.

And all that great music.

[M Kehoe]

You ever heard of Jack Palance?

Hopefully I can do one arm pushups at 90.

Methinks I’ll be on the FR Memorial wall before I get to 90.

5.56mm

[Ezekiel]

Thanks, those were fun. My favorite was the one by Tony Perkins.

You reminded me of a Moon song I hadn't listened to in a long time (until now), but it was/is deeply inspiring to me personally -- that much is obvious, heh). This was a timely reminder for me to go back to it, to hear the important message, to replay 100x if needed.

While Tiny Tim certain had his bizarre and uh, rather unfortune 'wiring' issues [and was greatly exploited and belittled on account of them], this song truly taps into something beyond this world:

***

Years ago they said I'd never make it
They tried to stick a pin in my balloon
They said I was too strange
And my dreams were all in vain --
But they said the same about man on the Moon

I knocked on doors and I sang my songs and
Each day they'd say Hey go away and don't come back

But I crusaded until I made it
Nothing's impossible if you try
So have your dream
Go on and sing your song
There's nothing wrong with singing out of tune
If people laugh and say your dream can never be
Just think of me and man on the Moon

And just a while back you'd be a bit cracked
If you would talk about a walk out on the Moon
And who'd be believe it we finally reached it
Nothing's impossible if you try
So have your dream
Go on and sing your song
There's nothing wrong with singing out of tune

If people laugh and say your dream can never be
Just think of me and man on the Moon.

If people laugh and say your dream can never be
Just think of me and man on the Moon

Tiny Tim - Me and the Man on the Moon

[Fledermaus]

They’re nuts

[MD Expat in PA]

I was 8 years old in 1969. My dad was a huge fan of the US/NASA space program. One of my earliest memories was watching an early Gemini launch with him and the many others that followed. He’d get me up early or let me stay up way past my bedtime so we could watch them together.

We had a subscription to National Geographic back then and we got a big map of the Earth and a big map of the Moon as part of our subscription. I also got, IIRC from a box of Captain Crunch cereal, a plastic model of the Saturn rocket and the Apollo 11 orbiter and lunar lander. I also “borrowed” the “ships” from my older brother’s Battleship game.

My dad got a big kick watching me play.

I laid the map of the Earth on the floor on one side of the living room, and the map of the Moon on the opposite side and “practiced” the launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, I even put my transistor radio on the map near Huston TX to represent Huston Control and I’d do Mission Control voices that I had memorized from all the previous Apollo missions.

Then I’d circle the Earth map several times to represent the initial orbit then walk over to the Moon map, circle around that several times and then separate the lander from the orbiter and land on the exact spot on the Moon map where Apollo 11 was going to land.

Then I’d blast off from the Moon, dock with the orbiter and make the long journey back to the other side of the living room and splash down in the Pacific where my brother’s “Battleship” navy was waiting to pick our astronauts up. I’d also yell, “Take that you Commie Ruskies!” My dad got an especially big kick out of that.

My “practice” ended up being pretty accurate to the real thing.

I only saw my dad cry twice in my life – when my mother died in 1996 and when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon in 1969.

[Ezekiel]

That is such a delightful story. I enjoyed reading it.

Plus, your recollection of the excellent details is such a contrast my lack of memory of most everything in childhood, or even my life on the whole. It’s basically a blur, with a few points of interest, not having much in the way of detail.

I suspect it was because there was no “there” there to remember!

I sure was a big Apollo 11 fan, though, even at such a young age. It’s carried on through all of these years.

[SunkenCiv]

I could do one arm pushups *if* I were on the Moon. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

In my early 20s I visited the Huntsville facility, I don’t remember the rocket display looking that nice. :^)