Visit to the USS Hornet (Apollo recovery ship) (Patreon)

I did some combined R2-D2 trooping and Apollo discovery on the USS Hornet last month. Two hobbies in one!

The USS Hornet aircraft carrier is moored in the San Francisco bay, off the Alameda island. Besides its many wartime deployments, it is best known to the public for its late career, being the recovery ship for the astronauts of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12. 

The USS Hornet was celebrating the splashdown anniversary of Apollo 11, and for some reason invited our R2 builders group and the Rebel Legion, a (gifted) Star Wars costuming group. I guess we are considered space people too? Hey, I'm fine with that.

I had family obligations in the afternoon so I could not bring my R2, but I brought my Tatooine Droid Mouse racer instead, which fit well in the environment, scurrying around the ship and around Darth Vader and the storm troopers...

But I was even more interested by the Apollo capsule they have onboard, which I had never seen. It's a very early capsule, a Block I tester that was later refurbished to resemble a Block II. The astronauts used this pseudo Block II to do training with it - like ingress, egress, floatation, etc...  There is also a Gemini boilerplate capsule behind (in dark blue). Just a mockup of the outside. It's so small compared to Apollo!

I was particularly interested by the control panel that we are in the process of replicating for the PMP. Unfortunately it had been replaced by a cardboard stand-in (I wonder if the original panel is the one we can see today at the Smithsonian).

It is unique though, as you can crane your head inside and get a good feel of the space. I had not realized that when the couches are down, the feet of the astronauts almost touch the optics panel in the lower bay.

All the electronics we are restoring would be around and below the optics, right behind the foot rests you see here. 

Fortunately there was still a few side panels that had been left original.

They also have the actual mobile quarantine facility on display, where the astronauts of Apollo 11 and 12 spent two long weeks of isolation after they came back from the Moon.

It is based on an Airstream trailer, of course completely refitted with all kind of 1960's whizz tech inside. It even has one of the very first experimental microwave ovens. 

It's chilling to think that Neil Armstrong and Co. were in these seats!

They also have a recovery helicopter. It is not the one that recovered the astronauts, but the same model that has been repainted and fitted to look like the original.

Inside, it's military rough, but must have felt like paradise to the returning astronauts.

There are also quite a few vintage aircrafts on display, and you can visit the whole ship, which takes a very long time. I had not realized that an F14 was that large.

There were a few gifted rocket modelers exhibiting their display. Most of the rockets here are made out of cardboard.

I was not going to make a video of this, but now that I have made this post, it could actually serve as the script for a short, light-hearted one. So maybe, let me know what you think.

Alright, that's it, and you better behave, lest the Ewoks will chop your head off...

Marc