Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight (44 page)

Apollo 11
being welcomed by a half Earth and being bid farewell by a full moon. (Composite photograph, NASA)

The larger body was now pulling them back to family and friends, back to the life they loved. They took turns with the cameras at the windows.

CapCom told them, “The weather forecast for the landing area at the moment is 2,000 scattered, high scattered, 10 miles, wind from zero-eight-zero at 18 knots. You’ll have about three-to-six-foot waves, and it looks like you’ll be landing about 10 minutes before sunrise, over.”

“Sounds good,” Neil acknowledged, recalling another night landing on the Pacific; his and Dave Scott’s hair-raising night return aboard
Gemini 8
.

And it was not only a night landing he wasn’t crazy about. There was quarantine ahead—three weeks of it.

There simply was no evidence or scientific justification to quarantine the crew but Neil, Chris Kraft, Deke Slayton, and others who made Apollo go forced themselves to go along with the scientific community’s fuss.

These hysterical handwringers were the same who had warned that a spacecraft landing on the moon would be gobbled up by hundreds of feet of dust and if NASA was to successfully place a human on the lunar surface, it would take the agency several attempts before astronauts could overcome the hazards.

These same doomsayers’ forefathers had warned Columbus he would sail off the edge of the Earth, and now their descendants were warning that the
Apollo 11
astronauts would bring back alien organisms that would contaminate Earth. Their worries were so farfetched only Hollywood was capable of believing such nonsense, but that didn’t stop some not-too-bright people in the media and on Capitol Hill from listening.

Following splashdown,
Apollo 11
’s crew was to be handed biological isolation garments, BIGs for short, that were rubberized, zippered, hooded, and visored with side-filtered face masks. After they struggled to put them on, they would then be flown to the carrier where they would enter a sterile trailer. Upon reaching Hawaii, the quarantine trailer would be off-loaded for flight by a C-141 transport to the Manned Spacecraft Center. There they would be confined for three weeks, until doctors completed their examinations of crew, lunar rocks, and other samples, and until solid science confirmed for certain the astronauts would not unleash a plague on the world. Only then would
Apollo 11
’s astronauts be set free to tour the world. Everyone wanted to wish them well and shake their hands.

A smiling
Apollo 11
crew watched its home planet getting closer and closer. (NASA)

Neil thought quarantine was at best stupid, but politically mandatory. Having no choice, he and Mike and Buzz went along with a smile and they were pleasantly surprised when
Apollo 11
’s backup commander, Jim Lovell, called: “Just wanted to remind you that the most difficult part of your mission is going to be after recovery,” Jim laughed.

“We’re looking forward to all parts of it,” Mike Collins answered with a straight face.

“Please don’t sneeze.”

“Keep the mice healthy,” he agreed, quickly adding an up-to-date observation. “The Earth is really getting bigger up here and, of course, we see a crescent.”

*   *   *

Early Thursday, July 24, the prime recovery ship the USS
Hornet
was ordered to move northwesterly a distance of some 200 miles.

It was said the
Hornet
’s new location would be in calmer seas and Mission Control told
Apollo 11
, “The
Hornet
will be on station just far enough off the target point to keep from getting hit.
Recovery 1
, or the chopper, is there; they’re on station. And Hawaii Rescue 1 and 2, the C-130s, are within 40 minutes off your target point.”

What CapCom failed to mention was the
Hornet
was moving well clear of any possibility of getting hit by a plummeting
Apollo 11
because President Nixon was on board. What CapCom also failed to mention was that President Nixon did not request the move, and he simply didn’t know about it. High-ranking Navy officers who didn’t wish to be responsible for the president getting injured or killed on their watch had given the order.

Then, once the crew was settled for reentry, Jim Lovell was back. He told them, “This is your friendly backup commander. Have a good trip, and please remember to come in BEF.”

BEF meant blunt-end-forward. That would be with the heat shield leading, absorbing the heat, and Neil told Jim, “You better believe. Thank you kindly,” and then turning he quickly added, “We can see the moon passing by the window, Jim, and it looks like what I consider to be the correct size.”

“You’re almost home, son,” Lovell told him, adding, “You’re going over the hill there shortly. You’re looking mighty fine to us.”

Neil simply said, “See you later,” and with Mike Collins driving, and with
Apollo 11
’s command module moving about 25,000 miles per hour, they kissed the fringes of the atmosphere some 400,000 feet northeast of Australia. It was the beginning of their six-and-a-half-degree entry into Earth’s protective cover. An entry too shallow would have them bounce off like a stone skipping across a pond never to return; too steep and their spacecraft couldn’t stand the heat; but by entering just right
Apollo 11
was slowing and slowing, appearing to be a comet within a sheath of flaming colors.

The astronauts and their command module began a brief life as a man-made meteor. Temperatures on its heat shield soared to what could be found on the surface of the sun as they plunged downward with their backs to their line of flight. Only ships on the surface of the western Pacific were able to see their command module hurtling through atmosphere, a flaming streak of intense and blinding fire with an outer red sheath followed by a streamer of flames 125 miles long. Inside the crew was cool and comfortable.

The USS
Hornet
standing by to recover
Apollo 11
. (U.S. Navy and NASA)

Apollo 11
was trading off tremendous speed for heat, and the more their heat shield burned, the slower the astronauts flew until they were out of the inferno of reentry and radio blackout. They heard, “
Apollo 11
,
Apollo
11
this is
Hornet, Hornet
, over.”

“Hello,
Hornet
,” Neil answered. “This is
Apollo 11
read you loud and clear.” They had left the blackness of the Pacific night and flown into the rising sun where their three large parachutes streamed away from the command module, opening partially for deceleration, then blossoming wide and full.

“What’s your error of splashdown and condition of crew?”

Apollo 11
rode to Earth on three parachutes, like
Apollo 17
seen here. (U.S. Navy and NASA)

Neil, Mike, and Buzz dressed in their Biological Isolation Garments (BIGs) wait in the life raft attached to
Apollo 11
for helicopter pickup to the
Hornet
. (U.S. Navy and NASA)

“The condition of crew is good,” Neil reported. “We’re on main chutes and passing through 4,000 to 3,500 feet, on the way down.”

A little more than a mile away the helicopter with rescue swimmers began its run toward
Apollo 11
’s splashdown point, telling the
Hornet
, “This is Swim One. We have a visual dead ahead about a mile.”

“
Hornet,
Roger.”

“This is Swim One,
Apollo 11
.”

Neil answered, “300 feet.”

The recovery helicopter replied, “Roger, you’re looking real good,” and the swimmers watched
Apollo 11
drop comfortably onto Pacific waves, and then reported, “Splashdown.”

The first Earthlings to visit another place were home.

TWENTY-TWO

BACK HOME

Swim One’s helicopter brought the
Apollo 11
’s astronauts to the aircraft carrier
Hornet
’s flight deck. A brass band was playing. Sailors and visitors, including President Richard Nixon were cheering. The crew, dressed in their greyish-green biological isolation garments (BIGs), was rushed through the back way into its sterile quarantine trailer.

The
Apollo 11
astronauts leave the
Hornet
’s helicopter in their BIGs. (U.S. Navy and NASA)

The three grateful-to-be-back astronauts immediately removed their BIGs and donned their NASA jumpsuits, then moved to the trailer’s rear window. There stood Mr. Nixon on the other side.