USS Hornet Apollo 11 Cruise Report (1969) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

USS Hornet Apollo 11 Cruise Report (1969) [pdf]

history.navy.mil

34 pointsLammy12 comments

I stayed the night on the USS Hornet either for a field trip of some sorts during the late 90s. Really neat place, if you’d never been on (or seen) an aircraft carrier, I would encourage anyone to check it out as it’s a docked museum open to the public. If I have guests and were in the area, I will take my visitors there too.

They had a the dimensions of give containment chamber on the floor that the Apollo astronauts had to quarantine in, but was disappointed that this thing wasn’t on the floor of the Hornet[0]. It looked like if you built a mid-century airstream camper on a cargo container frame base. However, they have Apollo 14’s MQF on display now.

The hornet is also supposedly very haunted.

[0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Pr...

I believe they have that Airstream now, as of a few years ago.

According to the report this famous photo happened at 18:55 GMT :)

“GMT — SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

[…]

1854 — Astronauts draw curtain open.

1855 — President addresses astronauts.

[…]”

If I'm remembering correctly they actually lost the quarantine trailers they used for the Apollo missions and ended up reacquiring and restoring them from some yokels who had bought them off surplus

People in the San Francisco Bay Area can visit the Hornet in Alameda, where it's docked as a museum ship!

https://uss-hornet.org/

Sister Essex-class ship USS Yorktown CV-10 is preserved in Charleston SC (east coast of the US) and is also well worth a visit.

https://www.patriotspoint.org/explore/uss-yorktown/

Even though they are of the same class, there are differences between the two ships. Both were upgraded several times over their careers.

And in NYC the USS Intrepid is another Essex-class museum.

If you've served on one of these, you can arrange for a special tour.

I thought it was super interesting that they had a wog day with all the civilians and press on board and it looks like they allowed the non-sailors to become shell backs. I didn't know that was something that had ever happened. Super interesting.

Very interesting indeed. And I thought that the ceremony only happened when the ship crossed the equator. Apollo 11 splashed down southwest of Hawaii at 13°19′N 169°9′W.

Did they cross just to kill time?

In depth reports like this are great. I like how it focuses on the hard part of the mission, maintaining comms in the middle of the south pacific. the recovery operations were almost incidental by comparison. I do note that they trained like hell on the recovery. which is what made it appear so easy.

One interesting thing I learned. There was a live russian language radio broadcast via the voice of america shortwave station. Now I am curious if there is a recording of this.

Goodness. I watched the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon, and I would have said that I remembered the details well. But if you had asked me whether Nixon was there to speak to the astronauts, I'd have said, No, of course not. I suppose that fifty-four years will do that for memories.

“24 July — On station Apollo recovery position. President Nixon arrived on board. Apollo Eleven Crew recovered by helicoptier (See narrative of recovery). Command Module brought aboard by HORNET and UDT 11 recovery teams.“

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