On day two of NASA’s Exploration Science Forum (held this year on July 23-25 at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA), conference attendees took buses up to Alameda, located in the East Bay, to visit the USS Hornet. The USS Hornet is the ship that retrieved the Apollo 11 astronauts after their splashdown in the Pacific, and we were visiting it 50 years later to the day!
Once we boarded the ship (which is now permanently docked in Alameda), we had some time to explore before the panels began. I saw the Airstream trailer where the ‘plus three’ were quarantined following their splashdown, a capsule whose landing test onto the ground didn’t go well, and a lot of interesting aircraft.
Out of fear that a ‘Moon bug’ would kill everyone once the astronauts returned, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins stayed in this modified Airstream for three weeks!
After exploration time (during which I got a pair of NASA socks as a souvenir!), the first panel was four crewmembers who were working on the ship when it retrieved the astronauts. They said that since the Hornet had been at sea for a while before it was tasked with retrieving the astronauts, they were disappointed that they didn’t get to go home sooner! He said that “history is often wasted on 22-year-olds.” I learned that the Hornet did practice retrievals, where they would drop a capsule in the ocean, sail away, then come back and retrieve it as if it were the real deal. The Hornet had a busy 1969: after getting the Apollo 11 astronauts in July, it also picked up the Apollo 12 astronauts in November.
The next panel was on lunar geology and was hosted by lunar scientists of all different levels: a current grad student, mid-career researchers, and Jack Schmitt, the Apollo 17 astronaut who is the most recent person to have walked on the Moon. A recording of the panel can be seen here.
Near the end of the panel, the moderator encouraged members of the public to ask questions of the panel. One person asked Jack Schmitt “What was going through your mind when you first set foot on the Moon?” His answer was first “I was trying not to fall over!” His commander had landed such that there was a large rock near where Schmitt was exiting the capsule. But after he successfully did not fall over, then he was able to appreciate the Moon’s landscape.
Visiting the USS Hornet was great fun! Many thanks to NASA and SSERVI for making this trip a part of this year’s Exploration Science Forum.
The USS Hornet retrieving the Apollo 11 astronauts on July 24th, 1969. (Image from Wikipedia)