Apollo the journey back home tv#

The astronauts were moved to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston on July 28, but they were kept in quarantine for a few more days. All the lunar samples and data tapes were successfully recovered. President Nixon welcomed them back to Earth and congratulated them on the success of the mission. The astronauts reached the Hornet and were immediately rushed into the Mobile Quarantine Facility where they would spend the next three weeks. NASA was unsure whether the lunar surface hosted pathogens and bacteria but preferred to take precautions. Columbia was surrounded by divers from the helicopters, who passed biological isolation suits to the astronauts. Several helicopters were already in the air, ready to recover the crew and capsule. Columbia changed its flight plan immediately.Īt 16:51 UTC, Columbia struck the water just a few miles from the Hornet.

NASA agreed to move the recovery area to a safe distance from the original planned site. The general enthusiasm was curbed when the US Air Force was informed that a storm was approaching the recovery area, putting the mission in serious danger. President Nixon, accompanied by Secretary of State William Rogers and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, flew to the USS Hornet to witness the recovery. The USS Hornet was sent to the Pacific Ocean to recover Columbia. Armstrong ended the message with the words, “Good night from Apollo 11.”

Apollo the journey back home tv#

The night before their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, the astronauts made a TV broadcast, sending a personal message to the viewers and listeners and thanking the thousands of people who worked relentlessly to make the moon landing possible. Once the astronauts were safe aboard Columbia, the Eagle's ascent stage was detached and abandoned in space. At 17:54 UTC, after two hours of preparations, they left the lunar surface in the ascent stage to join Collins who awaited inside Columbia. They were awakened by Houston when it was time to prepare for the return flight. By July, NASA was ready for Apollo 11 and the journey to the moon. Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 continued the testing in the spring of 1969. Apollo 7 checked the command module’s behavior in Earth’s orbit in 1968, followed by a test in the lunar orbit by Apollo 8. Operations were slowly resumed after thorough investigations, and NASA began testing the modules. Much of the other technologies required for Project Apollo had already been developed and tested during NASA’s previous program, Project Gemini.ĭespite the initial enthusiasm, Project Apollo suffered a large delay when Apollo 1 mission ended in a devastating ground fire that killed the three astronauts on board. Meanwhile, NASA was also working on the development of the large Saturn V rocket, which would launch the spacecraft. The LM was designed with distinct ascent and descent stages. With bristling antennae and four spindly legs, it resembled a giant insect. Unlike the Apollo craft, it lacked a heat shield and sleek aerodynamic lines to slip through air. It was not designed to withstand the heat of reentry into the earth’s atmosphere. The LM was a truly unique flying machine as it was the first vehicle designed to operate in airless space-making it the first true spaceship.