Community Corner

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, 84, to Visit USS Hornet Museum in Alameda

The USS Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 crew in 1969.

Forty-five years after his iconic moon landing, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin is set to reunite with the ship that recovered the Apollo 11 crew from the Pacific Ocean when they returned to Earth from their historic space mission.

Aldrin, 84, will visit the USS Hornet Museum on Saturday to participate in Splashdown 45, an event celebrating that first moon landing in 1969.
 
"The Hornet is significant to me," Aldrin said. "I've been there twice before."
 
The USS Hornet, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, was charged with recovering astronauts Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins after the crew returned from space. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.
 
Aldrin, who was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 11, called that first moon landing a "historic time" but added it was a great feeling when the crew safely returned to Earth four days later, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean in the Apollo Command Module, albeit upside down.

"You knew you were home because you could smell the salt air," he said. Aldrin said the crew was immediately placed in isolation suites when divers reached the floating module. They were then brought to the Hornet, where they entered a quarantine facility constructed from a converted Airstream trailer. While in quarantine on the Hornet, the men were visited by President Richard Nixon, who was aboard the ship to personally welcome the astronauts back to Earth.
 
The Hornet, decommissioned in 1970 and now berthed in Alameda, is famous in its own right, having played a major role in the Pacific battles of World War II and serving in the Korean and Vietnam wars and as the recovery ship for the Apollo 11 and 12 space missions. Saturday's event will showcase the Hornet's role in the Apollo recoveries. Visitors will have an opportunity to meet Aldrin, Bay Area astronaut Yvonne Cagle and other NASA and Navy personnel.

—By Bay City News


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