On the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 splashdown – the day when the three-man crew from the Moon plummeted into the Pacific Ocean – the aircraft carrier that picked them up at sea opened its decks to commemorate the occasion. Decommissioned in 1970 after nearly 30 years of service, including World War II, the U.S.S. Hornet is now a museum, permanently docked in San Francisco bay.
Astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, one of the last two men to walk on the Moon, spent the morning at the 6th annual NASA Exploration Science Forum (NESF), where he discussed his own experience as a scientist on the Moon during Apollo 17 in 1972. In the afternoon, the NESF participants boarded the U.S.S. Hornet, where Schmitt was honored and is captured here inspecting a Moon rock. Additional details of the event are covered here .
“SSERVI is proud to partner with the Aircraft Carrier Hornet Foundation, which preserves and honors the legacy of USS Hornet, a National and State Historic Landmark, and its role in naval aviation history, the defense of our country, the Apollo Program, and exploration of space,” said SSERVI Director Greg Schmidt.
The event was co-hosted by the Aircraft Carrier Hornet Foundation and NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.