I first wrote this in late March, when we were being told the Covid-19 lockdown would last three weeks. At the time, this little story seemed apposite - who doesn’t want to emulate the good cheer and stoicism of the Apollo astronauts?
Two months later, well, perhaps I’d have done better to tell the story of Sergei Krikalyev, who was stuck in space for for 311 days after the dissolution of the Soviet Union left him with no base to come home to (Baikonur Cosmodrome was in the newly independent Kazakhstan).
Still, the Apollo quarantine remains an interesting little vignette of space history, so here it is.
The handshake from the Tricky Dick had to wait. NASA also had to argue hard to keep him from having dinner with the astronauts before they set off. He didn’t buy into the whole quarantine thing.
For the first 88 hours after returning to earth Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were confined to a single modified Airstream Trailer.
The fear was that they’d bring back a bug from the lunar surface and the human immune system would be completely unprepared for any extra-terrestrial pathogen. It would make the Black Death look like a summer cold. NASA assessed the risk of anything nasty coming back to earth as low, but the potential damage was immense. So, the astronauts weren’t getting hugs with the wife & kids when they got home.
This ‘face-to-face’ with the Apollo families happened in Hawaii, hence the flower garlands.
Instead, they got to look at their nearest and dearest through a small window in the trailer, known as the mobile quarantine facility. Today, the original is still held and exhibited by the Smithsonian. It was modified to have a lower air pressure than outside, so any pathogens would stay in.
The first stages of the quarantine process were the hardest. The Apollo spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific, so the astronauts had to be whisked into the trailer on board aircraft carrier USS Hornet. Until they were inside, they wore sealed suits to avoid contaminating the ship’s crew. The suits weren’t carried for the whole trip. A swimmer had to jump out of the helicopter and throw them in through the capsule’s hatch. It would have been impossible in bad weather.
The unsung hero of this operation is the engineer who also had to jump out of the helicopter so he could power down the command module’s systems before it was taken on board. The process only took a few minutes, but his exposure to potential pathogens meant he had to join the astronauts for their entire 3 week quarantine.
On board the Hornet, the quartet was joined by a doctor, who also had to serve the full sentence while he monitored their (very healthy) vitals. The only way to get them home without breaking quarantine was to carry the whole trailer. A C141 military transport airlifted it from Hawaii.
The journey ended at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston. For the final transfer, the astronauts had to wear the sealed suits again, which can’t have been fun.
This is actually the guys getting into the trailer on board Hornet, but it was the best pic of the suits,
The Apollo crew and their entourage spent the remaining 21 days of quarantine under constant medical supervision.
Nasa maintained precautions against an extra-terrestrial plague for the next three missions before eventually deciding isolation was unnecessary. The idea of space quarantine hasn’t completely gone away though. These days the concern goes the other way - NASA takes extreme measures to avoid contaminating potentially life-bearing worlds with Earth bacteria. When the Galileo probe reached the end of its life, they deliberately crashed it into Jupiter to keep any aliens on Europa or Ganymede safe from any bugs it might be carrying. I hope whatever’s living in the icy brine is suitably grateful.
Neil Armstrong had to celebrate his 39th birthday with a random assortment of doctors and scientists, but he doesn’t look to unhappy about it. The cake is vanilla.