The USS Hornet Museum is commemorating the 40th anniversary of its historic, safe recovery of Apollo 11 with Splashdown 2009, a three-day festival to take place on the ship.
On Saturday, the featured guest speaker will be former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 11 and the second man to walk on the moon. Aldrin represents “living history” and he can speak to space travel technology and experiences, both then and now. He has the seen the evolution of NASA and the space program, and his stories are invaluable.
Forty years ago, the aircraft carrier USS Hornet recovered the first two NASA missions that landed men on the moon, Apollo 11 and Apollo 12. The ship is the largest surviving artifact from these incredible events, which are among the most important in the history of humankind. On July 24, 1969, President Richard Nixon, Admiral John S. McCain and a number of other dignitaries were present while Hornet recovered astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and their spacecraft Columbia. Armstrong and Aldrin were the first two humans to walk on the Moon.
Aldrin will also be signing his new book Magnificent Desolation: The Long Road Journey from the Moon, a memoir about his triumphs in space and the hard times back on Earth. For more information visit www.uss-hornet.org.
