posted 07-28-2019 07:52 AM               

Space Cover #525: Apollo 11 Recovery, Moon Bugs, and The President

So, what better way to wrap up our Space Cover of the Week coverage of the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary than with the end of the flight? Above is the Apollo 11 USS Hornet Captain's Cover, hand canceled aboard the Hornet on July 24, 1969, the day that she recovered the Apollo 11 crew and capsule. Per Ross Smith's excellent website, 6000 of these cachets were produced with each Hornet crewman receiving two, while the three astronauts, President Nixon, and Admiral John McCain each received twenty-five. These cachets are known to have been postmarked with the hand cancel (above) and both types of Hornet machine cancels.

The man who commanded the Hornet that day, Captain (later Admiral) Carl J. Seiberlich came to speak to a Space Unit Meeting in 2005 and graciously autographed this cover. He was a fascinating speaker, and please let me recount my favorite of his stories.

Recall that there was concern of the Moon possibly harboring some microscopic form of life, and that if brought back to Earth, it could wreak havoc on the life on our planet. Precautions included the crew wearing biological isolation garments, them walking directly from the recovery helicopter into to their Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) on the ship, and the divers disinfecting around Columbia's hatch after the crew got out. So, Captain Seiberlich had to deal with all of this and the possible effects on his 2000+ crewmen, while recovering the astronauts and capsule as every press service on the planet was looking over his shoulder.

And then, just a few days before the recovery, The President of the United States decided that he would come to the ship to watch the recovery and greet the crew! So, Captain Seiberlich's problems were compounded with the (albeit remote) grim prospect of infecting The President of the United States with moon bugs! Captain Seiberlich had to make sure that while on the ship, The President was always upwind of the astronauts, capsule, and MQF. That even entailed turning the ship at certain moments to keep The President upwind. In fact, they had to turn right before The President went to greet the astronauts through the MQF window in those historic images.

One of those myriad details that most of us never knew about that made this historic mission work so well...