Tag Archives: Apollo-Soyuz

Ships’ Caps: Back to Hiding Space Hair After 51 Years

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We saw an amazing picture-perfect sunny splashdown off San Diego this weekend of Artemis II, wrapping up a manned moon flyby that spanned 10 days and 694,481 miles, setting several records.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crewmembers, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist, aboard, was seen as it splashed down at 5:07 p.m. PDT in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. NASA’s Artemis II mission took Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back to Earth. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

With the splashdown process, the Navy is back in the space vehicle recovery game for the first time since the ASTP (Apollo-Soyuz) mission in July 1975, with the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26) as primary recovery ship, launching a det of MH-60S Seahawks from the “Wildcards” of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 23 (HSC-23), and a four-man dive medical team with Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group ONE (EODGRU-1) to make the first contact.

Navy divers approach NASA’s Artemis II module to recover the crew in San Diego after returning from a lunar mission, April 10, 2026. The USS John P. Murtha is underway in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations, supporting the Artemis mission following its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class David Rowe VIRIN: 260410-N-MJ302-9161

Amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26) steams through the Pacific Ocean, April 8, 2026. John P. Murtha is underway in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations supporting NASA’s Artemis II mission, retrieving the crew and spacecraft following their return to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. NASA’s Artemis II mission sent four astronauts on a flight around the moon in the Orion space capsule, marking the first time humans journeyed to deep space in over 50 years. (U.S. Navy phot

An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter, attached to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23, prepares to land aboard amphibious transport dock USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26) following the extraction of NASA astronauts from the Orion crew module in the Pacific Ocean, April 10, 2026. USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26) is underway in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations supporting NASA’s Artemis II mission, retrieving the crew and spacecraft following their return to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. NASA’s Artemis II

There was a lot of nostalgia on this mission.

For instance, the crew reportedly took a small piece of the lost shuttles Challenger and Columbia, along with a one-inch square clip of canvas from the Wright Flyer sent over from the Smithsonian, making the Wright Brothers fly higher than they would have seen possible, Challenger make it to space one last time, and Columbia make it safely home.

One big callback for me is that the four Artemis II crewmembers received personalized blue-and-gold snapback Ships’ Caps to wear on deck once aboard Murtha.

The tradition goes back to Gemini 11, which was recovered by USS Guam in 1966, with Navy CDRs Richard Gordon and Charles “Pete” Conrad carrying the baseball caps aboard their spacecraft and donning them just before they stepped onto the deck of the carrier.

(15 Sept. 1966) — The Gemini-11 prime crew, astronauts Charles Conrad Jr. (right) and Richard F. Gordon Jr. pose in front of the recovery helicopter which brought them to the USS Guam. Photo credit: NASA. Date Created:1966-09-15. NASA ID S66-50752

The tradition was carried on throughout the Apollo, Skylab, and ASTP launches.

A few for reference:

The Apollo 16 Command Module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 27, 1972, after an 11-day moon exploration mission. The 3-man crew is shown here aboard the rescue ship, USS Horton. From left to right are: Mission Commander John W. Young, Lunar Module pilot Charles M. Duke, and Command Module pilot Thomas K. Mattingly II. The sixth manned lunar landing mission, Apollo 16 (SA-511), lifted off on April 16, 1972. The Apollo 16 mission continued the broad-scale geological, geochemical, and geophysical mapping of the Moon’s crust, begun by the Apollo 15, from lunar orbit. This mission marked the first use of the Moon as an astronomical observatory by using the ultraviolet camera/spectrograph, which photographed ultraviolet light emitted by Earth and other celestial objects. The Lunar Roving Vehicle, developed by the Marshall Space Flight Center, was also used. NASA ID: 0401428

(8 Feb. 1974) — The crewmen of the third and final manned Skylab mission relax on the USS New Orleans, prime recovery ship for their mission, about an hour after their Command Module splashed down at 10:17 a.m. (CDT), Feb. 8, 1974. The splashdown, which occurred 176 statute miles from San Diego, ended 84 record-setting days of flight activity aboard the Skylab space station cluster in Earth orbit. Photo credit: NASA S74-17744 Date Created:1974-02-08

The Commanding Officer of the USS New Orleans, Captain Ralph E. Neiger, welcomes aboard ASTP astronauts Thomas Stafford, Donald Slayton and Vance Brand. The astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii at 5:18 p.m. today, ending the nine-day ASTP mission. The mission was highlighted by the rendezvous and docking with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit. Date Created:1975-07-24 KSC-75P-408 NASA ID: 75p-408

You just gotta love it.

P.S. If you have to have a repro of the old missions, check out Luna Replicas (not a sponsor, we don’t have those).

Godspeed, Gen. Stafford

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Thomas Patten Stafford was a tall Oklahoman who, born too late for WWII, nonetheless served in the Oklahoma National Guard during high school and college. Starting his undergrad career at the University of Oklahoma on a Navy ROTC scholarship, he applied to Annapolis and was accepted his sophomore year for the Class of 1952, including a summer mid cruise on the battlewagon USS Missouri.

Opting to go Air Forceon graduation, Stafford qualified on the F-86 Sabre in 1954, flying with the Cold War-era 54th FIS and 496th FIS before completing Test Pilot School and becoming an instructor.

Accepted to NASA Group Two in 1962, he would head to space with crewmate Wally Schirra in 1965 on Gemini 6A, on Gemini 9 with Eugene Cernan, and orbit the moon on Apollo 10 with Cernan and his old USS Missouri cabinmate, John Young. Perhaps most famously, he shook hands while in orbit with cosmonaut Alexei Leonov during the Apollo–-Soyuz mission in 1975.

Returning to the Air Force full-time in 1975, Stafford would command the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB and was key to the design and development of the F-117 and B-2.

Stafford retired as a lieutenant general in 1979, having flown more than 120 types of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft and three types of spacecraft, with the USAF noting the year prior that had “completed 507 hours and 43 minutes in space flight and wears the Air Force Command Pilot Astronaut Wings. He has more than 6,800 flying hours.”

Via NASA:

Today we mourn the passing of Thomas P. Stafford at the age of 93.

In December 1965, Stafford piloted Gemini VI, the first rendezvous in space, and helped develop techniques to prove the basic theory and practicality of space rendezvous.

Later he commanded Gemini IX and performed a demonstration of an early rendezvous that would be used in the Apollo lunar missions, the first optical rendezvous, and a lunar orbit abort rendezvous.

He served as the commander of the Apollo 10 ‘dress rehearsal’ mission preparing for the first Moon landing and as Apollo commander of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission, a joint space flight culminating in the historic first meeting in space between American Astronauts and Soviet Cosmonauts, which ended the International space race.

Throughout his career, Stafford helped us push the boundaries of what’s possible in air and space, flying more than 100 different types of aircraft.