Kings of the Capsule: Navy "Frogmen" and the Apollo 11 Splashdown

AirSpace Season 11, Episode 7 - Kings of the Capsule

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AirSpace theme in the under

Emily: Welcome to AirSpace from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. I'm Emily

Matt: And I'm Matt. There was an absolutely massive team of people involved in getting Apollo astronauts to the Moon and safely back to Earth. From the human computers to the clean room technicians, the rocket builders, the doctors, the spacesuit makers, and the astronauts themselves. 

Emily: One group that was key to a safe recovery when the Apollo Command Module splashed down into the ocean were the Navy's Underwater Demolition Teams, more often referred to as Frogmen.

Matt: These Frogmen would drop from helicopters to secure the modules, help the astronauts out and get everyone safely back to the carrier. We spoke to three of the sailors who secured the Apollo 11 mission, today on AirSpace sponsored by Lockheed Martin. 

AirSpace theme up and out

Matt: For today's episode, we're joined by Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony, who is our Museum's Apollo curator. She curates all things related to the Apollo missions, and she's gonna help us understand the job of the Frogmen and their importance to Apollo. Thanks Teasel for joining us.

Teasel: It's great to be here. 

Matt: So Emily, had you ever heard the term Frogman before? 

Emily: No, never. Never. And it never would've occurred to me because I don't think of frogs in the ocean as going together. 

Matt: That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that at all.

Emily: And I don't think about frogs in space either. So it was so out of context for me that when we first started talking about the Frogmen visiting the museum, when Matt, you got to talk to them. I didn't know where we were going with this because everybody's like, yeah, you know, Frogmen in Apollo. And I was like, I got, I need more information because I just had no idea what it referred to and how it connected to Apollo. 

Matt: Yeah, I had heard, I had heard the name before, but I didn't realize it was related to this, you know, other more formal name, the Underwater Demolition Team, which sounds pretty, you know, awesome Underwater Demolition Team. These things started out during World War II, clearing underwater weapons, which makes sense, right? Demolition makes sense when it comes to these sorts of weapons, a lot of which were probably explosive. And they also scouted beaches and took measurements ahead of amphibious landings.

But you know, today they don't exist. We don't talk about Frogmen anymore, but we do talk about their successors, the Navy SEALs. The SEALs now do every job that the Frogmen used to do, only they're now not trained the same way the Frogmen do, and they're not quite the same type of unit, but they basically took over all of those jobs.

So you probably had heard of a Navy SEAL.

Emily: Well, I feel like especially if you watch any kind of primetime crime drama of course you've heard of a Navy SEAL. Um, but I'm really curious about whether or not Frogmen relates to Apollo specifically, or if Frogmen relates to specifically this sort of Underwater Demolition Team Pre-SEAL?

Teasel: I think this is the general term that was used for this particular job and in the Navy and their work during Apollo. They didn't, weren't given a specific name for that, for that Apollo work. This is, um, a name that they came with to help out with the recovery of the, the crews. 

Emily: So there was always Frogmen in the Navy. They just decided they would be the perfect people to help with this specific Apollo related task? 

Teasel: Yeah, exactly. And I think also they, these were active duty sailors and they had just gotten back from Vietnam and, um, serving in Vietnam. So this was just part of their active duty and, and their service as members of the Navy.

Matt: And this is one of the parts of the Apollo missions that I think a lot of people might not be as aware of. They may have seen the footage of, you know, the astronauts on the Moon, but maybe they haven't seen the capsules splashing down and being recovered and the astronauts being taken to the, um, carriers where they were then you know, transported eventually to land.

But that is a big important part of the mission that comes down to a decision to have these be landings in the ocean. Could you tell us more about like, why this sort of mission architecture was, was used?

Teasel: So for the American Space Program, there were questions about how to return astronauts to Earth from the very start. Uh, so there are questions, you know, should there be ocean landings, should there be land landings? Should the spacecraft get these kind of inflatable wings, uh, as they near the Earth? There was, so there were a lot of, um, around 1960, you know, a lot of different ideas about how to approach, um, safe landing back on Earth. But one thing that the American program realized was that the United States had a global Navy, and that ocean landings had a lot of benefits.

It's a softer landing. It's still pretty, pretty rough, but it's the softer landing, than land landings. And you don't have to worry quite so much about, uh, interfering with populations of people. So the United States decided to pursue ocean landings for a variety of reasons. But a big part of that was, was the US Navy and the US Navy's capability to support, um, that type of landing.

Whereas you see in the Soviet Union, they landed on land. Uh, they didn't have access to warm ocean waters. Um, and, uh, they did have access to sort of vast swaths of unpopulated land. So that sort of simplifies things. But, um, it's such an important story because we often focus with a, with Apollo or the American, um, Space Program in general, we often focus on stories of astronauts or, or engineers.

But the military played a really important role as well. So for this recovery, but also, for, for tracking and communications and general support. So thousands of people from the military were supporting these civilian missions. 

And Matt, I'm so glad you talked about, the recovery of the, the Apollo mission is, is something we should focus on. I really like to emphasize that when President Kennedy proposed sending humans to the Moon in 1961, he didn't just say like, we're just gonna send humans to the Moon and land them there. He said, we're gonna land them there and return them safely back to Earth. 

Archive Audio, J.F. Kennedy speech to a joint session of Congress. May 25, 1961: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

Teasel: And so this is, this is a really important part of that, that goal that Kennedy sent out, um, set out in 1961 when they proposed Apollo. I'm so glad that you were able to, to speak with the Frogmen and get their side of the story because it is a really critical part of achieving that Apollo goal. 

Emily: Apollo isn't the first time that Frogmen were supporting American human space flight? Did the Frogmen start with the Mercury program? 

Teasel: So Frogmen, we're supporting the, the Mercury landings as well. And a very similar protocol to what you see with the Apollo program. So Project Mercury, the first American human space flight program onto, um, project Gemini, the next one, um, and then Apollo as well.

For Project Mercury, the plan was to land in the Atlantic Ocean, closer to Cape Canaveral, and they used a similar kind of protocol where they attached a collar around the spacecraft to help stabilize it and, and float it. And, you know, raises it above the, uh, the level of the ocean, a few inches, making it easier for the astronaut to, to, to come out of the spacecraft if need be. Or sometimes they're transported inside the spacecraft to the recovery carrier. Uh, but you see a very similar approach to recovering astronauts.

Matt: And so these Frogmen, obviously, they trained in how to recover Mercury, Gemini and then Apollo capsules. But for them, this was just one of the many things that they were being assigned in their regular sort of duty rotation, which included spending time in service in Vietnam and then being back in the U.S. For example, for this mission being stationed in San Diego and, and operating, uh, here. 

And we did have the good fortune to talk to three of these Frogmen, um, about what it's like to do that job and what's, what's involved. And so this is Clancy Hatleberg, one of those three Frogmen.

Clancy: We had just returned from Vietnam and the teams were in a three team rotation cycle. Um, one team was in country, one team was preparing to go into country and then, you know, like UDT 11, at the time we were in stand down mode, so we were assigned stateside duty.

Emily: Teams usually consisted of three swimmers. One officer, in this case Wes Chesser, 

Wes: I'm Wes Chesser. I was the officer in charge of Swim Two. The actual putting on the collar and putting the liferafts on. 

Matt: Then there were also two enlisted sailors on this team that was John Wolfram.

John: I'm John Wolfram. I was the youngest amongst these three when, uh, the splashdown took place, I was 20 years old.

Emily: And Mike Mallory, whom we didn't get to talk to for this episode,

Question: is that three swimmers and one officer, so Wes, John, Mike, and Clancy. Those are the four people. Three of those are swimmers, and one of those is the person we didn't talk to?

Teasel: Clancy's different. 

Emily: Okay. 

Teasel: Clancy’s a decontamination swimmer. So the other three jumped into the water and uh, and made sure it was stable, put the, the flotation device around it, put the the anchor on it. Um, and then Clancy came later not in a wetsuit, and did the decontamination process. 

Emily: Okay.

So Wes, John, and Mike are the ones that jumped in. As their swimmers in their wetsuits. Clancy came later to do his job afterwards.

Teasel: Yeah, 

Matt: So Clancy was also in charge of all three of the three man teams. So these three guys were just one of the teams that, uh, Clancy was responsible for.

Teasel: This is the second. This team was known as the second team, even though they were the chosen ones. 

Clancy: So we were being trained by NASA specifically to do the recovery. And that involved, uh, actually, um, three different stages. The, the first stage was we to catch the command module and slow it down 'cause that had a big sail area and get in the wind. And it had really moved.

And so that was the fastest swimmer's job was to attach the sea anchor. Then the, uh, other two, uh, members of the team would jump in with a, uh, flotation collar and back, and I think it was one of the early Mercury, uh, recoveries, they actually lost a command module and almost an astronaut at the same time. So from there forward, they put flotation collars around the, uh, uh, perimeter to keep it afloat if in case it started to take on water. 

Now, that was a difficult job because you don't have anything to hold onto, so you've got to, no leverage, you have to swim the thing around. And that's why Mike Mallory was part of the team because he was a real horse in the water.

Um, and then Wes, uh, as the officer in charge, now he's quick with a quip, but when he's in the water, he is all business. He is a cool head, and I needed somebody in there that was, uh, unflappable. So the things started to go wrong. I wasn't going to have to worry about, uh, not being able to solve the problem at hand. And he was the man. 

So once the command module, uh, was had the flotation collar around the outside, then uh, they would dump in the rafts. So catch the command module, put the the flotation collar around, then you get the rafts in. And then our job was to assist the astronauts out of the command module into the rafts and then into the Billy Pugh net that would take them up into the helicopter. That was the third phase. 

So we had responsibility of keeping the astronauts safe while in our care.

Matt: So the basic job of the Frogmen is to secure the spacecraft and help the astronauts get out and then get them up into the helicopter, right? That's sort of the basic job

Emily: And then get the capsule out of the water and get it on the carrier.

Matt: Right. They had a line to secure to the capsule and then did the helicopter lift it? Or how did the retrieval work?

Teasel: So it's different depending on, uh, which program you're talking about. So that would've happened with Mercury. But for this one, what ended up happening is the, um, the Hornet aircraft carrier approached the command module and then it was, lifted out of the water with a crane, um, that was on the aircraft carrier itself.

Emily: Oh, so it got really close. 

Teasel: Yes. Yeah. It is sort of interesting. So for Apollo 11, things got extra complicated because because Nixon decided to join them for the landing. And so they had to take a lot of extra precautions. Um, and then they also had all the, the press, the media, um, just the public interest. And Nixon also came along with, um, Secretary of State and the NASA administrator. 

So extra protocols were put in place, including making sure that the, the Hornet was not downwind of the astronauts. Remained at a, a somewhat safe distance until all the quarantine protocols were were undertaken. So when the astronauts splashed down around 12 or so miles from the aircraft carrier, um, it started getting closer and closer, but, they ended up not approaching the command module until, um, after Nixon had left. So it took some time for that, that to happen. Um, and the Frogmen were essential for stabilizing the command module and making sure that it was not gonna be drifting to another area. 

Matt: All right, so we're gonna talk about all of the parts of this job as, you know, it was described to us by the Frogmen, but first we're gonna let them tell us about their training. And if you've listened to any of our episodes about astronaut training. Or if you've ever seen Emily's favorite movie, uh, The Right Stuff, then you may know all about it. And just like the astronauts had to train and drill until they could basically do their job in their sleep. So did the Frogmen,

Clancy: Over and over and over again. ‘NASA Way’ is to drill it until it becomes second nature and you are no longer distracted 'cause you are living the procedure. So these guys did Apollo 10 and now we're,

Wes: I did Apollo 6. 

Clancy: and you did Apollo 6.

Wes: Yeah. 

Clancy: So I had really experienced people out there. And then here we are out in the middle of the Pacific for 11 again. And these guys spend more time prepping the gear than they actually do operating with it. 

So I went up to John Stonesifer, the, my counterpart with NASA and I said, you know, uh, we know how to do this job. These guys have already recovered a Apollo 10, so, you know, can we just dispense with this endless, uh, practice rounds? And I said, besides we're special warfare, we can improvise. 

And John Stonesifer looked at me and just couldn't believe that I had the temerity to say improvise. He said, ‘Lieutenant, we're NASA. We follow procedures. We don't improvise. Get back in the water.’ And then he said something very profound: ‘besides, failure's not an option.’ 

Matt: Mm. So they were using that phrase already?

Clancy: They were using that phrase. So I got to thinking about that. And NASA has this enormous checklist, launch orbit, uh, the uh, uh, lunar landing, splash down. So we were the last evolution. We were failure's last option. 

And I was the last person to screw that could screw things up. So I got really serious and I started to live my procedure. And that's what NASA wanted. That was the ‘NASA Way’. Practice, practice, practice. Because if you don't practice what you're good at. You won't be good at it anymore.

Matt: If you've ever lived in San Diego, which I did when I was in grad school, then you know that there's a huge Naval presence there. And most of the Frogmen's NASA training did happen there in San Diego around that big Naval base.

Teasel: They also used the opportunity while they were waiting for the astronauts to come back from the Moon to do a little extra training as well. And so, uh, the Hornet went from San Diego, to Pearl Harbor and and then it left Pearl Harbor, um, to prepare in case there was some issue, uh, before the astronauts went to the Moon.

So after the astronauts launched on July 16th, 1969, um, Hornet was in place for a potential need for recovery in the Pacific. Once it became clear that everything was fine with the mission and the astronauts were on their way to the Moon, uh, then Hornet used that opportunity to do more training for the recovery that was gonna come up on July 24th.

John: They brought a boilerplate out to San Diego and we rehearsed in the San Diego Bay for what, about a month before we even went to Hawaii and boarded the USS Hornet. 

Matt: And a boiler plate is a replica of the spacecraft?   

Clancy: That's correct.

John: It doesn't, it has the exact same shape and dimensions, but, uh, it doesn't have a hatch. You can't open it up. 

Matt: Mm-hmm. 

Wes: When we were out, uh, on site, uh, we were in the ship, on site when the launch occurred, and we were doing rehearsals day and night in rough weather, in nice weather, uh, with sharks, without sharks. Once the sharks found us, they never left us alone after that. But, uh, and we did at least three a day. I don't know if we ever did four… 

John: No. Three a day

Wes: …rehearsals a day. But, uh, 

John: There were actually three different groups, so there was a lot of training going on.

Emily: So they were on…were all of the Frogmen crews that we're gonna assist in the recovery on the Hornet, the entire duration of the Apollo 11 mission? 

Teasel: Even longer than the Apollo 11 mission. Yes. The 11 swimmers who, uh, were assigned to support the recovery of the mission, uh, boarded Hornet on, on, July 3rd after it already reached Pearl Harbor. 

Matt: So Teasel set us up. What was it like on that day in the Pacific when Apollo 11 was set to splash down? 

Teasel: So up until July 24th, the weather had been somewhat nice, but, uh, storms started rolling in and so they had to change the location, um, of the splash down. The astronauts ended up splashing down a, it was like roughly 900 miles, uh, southwest of Hawaii. 

And, um, uh, at about 12 or 13 miles from the USS Hornet aircraft carrier very, very early in the morning. So they splashed down just before 6:00 AM local time. Um, so the sun was starting to rise. 

It was a bit. It was a bit cloudy, but the, it wasn't raining, so, um, uh, the weather was okay. The conditions were okay. The water was somewhat choppy, so that made the job of the Frogmen quite challenging at first. Um, by the, by the end of the recovery it had settled quite a bit. But, uh, if you watch the videos, you can see them struggling with those waves.

Clancy: We were launched very early, as a matter of fact I was able to see the command module come down like a meteor through the sky.

We were orbiting at the edge of the storm that, but in a, uh, area where the clouds were all around the storm clouds. So it came in on the dark side over to the, where the sun was coming up. It was quite spectacular. 

John: There was nine ships out there, 9,000 men. The Arlington was a communication ship, and they were just two miles away. But the Hornet I understand was about 15 miles away when it splashed down. 

Teasel: The spacecraft itself would've, um, would've landed at roughly 20ish miles per hour, somewhere between 20 and 25 miles per hour. And then almost immediately what ended up happening is it took a little while for the parachutes to be released from the spacecraft. And so they filled with water. 

The spacecraft ended up in what's called the stable two position. So basically, if you imagine upside down. So it had to be righted using, uh, these inflatable devices that we actually have on exhibit right now at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center so you can see them in person.

So those inflated, those righted the spacecraft, um, all in all that takes about, it took about like eight minutes or so, five to eight minutes for them to be in an upright position. But all that time there, there was a beacon letting everyone know where they were. They had dye that was released into the water.

And so, and there was also a light, so they were relatively easy to find and the Frogmen spotted them quite quickly and were able to approach the spacecraft, um, and help set up this inflatable collar to keep this ship stable as well as set up this anchor.

Wes: When we got there, the spacecraft was upside down. It was…

Clancy: stable two positions, what it's called

Wes: Yeah. Mm-hmm. So we couldn't do anything until it righted itself and there were bladders attached to the spacecraft that would inflate to cause the spacecraft to right itself. And so we were, we had to wait for that.

Emily: I love that upside down is a stable position, and it's not just a stable position, it's one of many stable positions. And while I suppose if you're a yoga person, upside down is also a stable position. But, um, how many stable positions were there?

I think that's potentially rhetorical, but I love that an upside down spaceship is stable. 

Teasel: It's a fair point. What, what is not stable if upside down is stable.

Matt: Think as long as it's still floating, it's stable. Right. All laugh

Wes: In that, uh, uh, weather condition. Uh, John attaching the sea anchor, he had one chance to get that attached.

And when he finally got that attached, I think a wave, actually, you were pulled up out of the water, almost totally… 

John: I was, yeah, holding on

Wes: …holding onto that ring, But I see that as the most important thing because the sea anchor is an underwater parachute. Mm-hmm. And it causes drag and it slows down the progress of the, uh, spacecraft.

And you have to have that first before you put on the, the collar. And then the collar stabilizes the spacecraft. So it makes it more manageable to, to do your job. And it's a, it's the, uh, collar is a platform to stand on. And to attach the rafts to. 

John: So the procedure was; the helicopter would come in low, I was a sea anchor man. And so I would jump into the ocean alone, swim up, attach the sea anchor, get a thumbs up from the astronauts inside.

And there was several helicopters, uh, above us and one of 'em had a doctor in it. Then Wes' helicopter would come in with he and Mike Mallory had a 200 pound flotation bladder, and they would jump in with that and we'd put it up against the capsule, attach it. Then they would drop the first raft in, and that would be attached right in front of the hatch door. This is where the astronauts would egress, and this is where Clancy would do the decontamination.​

Matt: So here's where we are in the story now: the capsule is, has righted itself, the sea anchor is attached, and the flotation collar is also attached. And this is when the Frogmen get to work, getting the astronauts out of the command module and into their BIG suits, into a raft, and then up into the helicopter. 

BIG suits. What is a BIG suit? 

Teasel: Biological Isolation Garment.

Emily: Oh, it's, it's an acronym?! 

Teasel: Yeah. 

Emily: I thought it was just a bigger suit. Oh my god. I feel, I feel, real stupid right now. 

Of course, it's an acronym. It's NASA and the military! There's acronyms in acronyms. What was I thinking? 

Teasel: And they were, they were only worn by, uh, for this one particular mission where there was still a lot of concern about biological pathogens coming back from the Moon. So airtight with air filters, um, really uncomfortable to wear because they were in a, some warm climate and, uh, the astronauts were sort of overheating in them. They didn't breathe at all. 

But they were only used for this one particular mission when there was, there was real concern about those biological pathogens, which then sort of decreased over time with future missions. 

Clancy: So, uh, for Apollo 11, you know, the astronauts were gonna walk on the Moon. Mm-hmm. So there was a concern that there might be a lunar pathogen in the lunar dust. So NASA had to take some precautions to, just to make sure, you know. I didn't meet anybody from NASA that thought there really was a lunar pathogen.

But, you know, uh, the media was, uh, hyping this War of the Worlds scenario in reverse. So they took precautions and the astronauts were going to have to be quarantined. And that was the first procedure that we're gonna have to wear Biological Isolation Garments that filtered their air as they breathed out and filtered my air as they breathed in through this gas mask.

John: And then because of, uh, the fear of lunar pathogens, the second raft is dropped in upwind, I believe it was. That was inflated. And this is where Mallory and Chesser and I would, uh, sit and while this decontamination was going on. 

So the helicopter then, after the two rafts, Clancy would jump in with his swim trunks and he had a, his biological garment in a bag along with the astronauts’. And then they lowered by helicopter, right? The all the decontaminants? 

Clancy: Yeah, the, the BIG suits came down and, 

John: uh, and after he, he got his suit on. Then we

Clancy: pulled me in, attached the canisters, and then, uh, the, uh Houston called back via the ship to the astronauts saying they're, you're, they we’re ready.

So they opened a hatch and I threw the BIG bag in with, uh, and they got 'em on. And then they opened the hatch and came back out one by one into the raft where, uh, I decontaminated them and then they decontaminated me with a very high tech car wash mitt. ​

Teasel: After the astronauts put on their BIG suits, um, and they exited the spacecraft and they got onto a raft and then they closed up the, the hatch and the spacecraft, and then Clancy sprayed them down, uh, to decontaminate them, um, and decontaminate everything. And he used what is basically like a, a very strong potent bleach.

So sodium, um, hypochlorite and, sort of got everywhere. It was a bit of a mess. The nozzle stuck. Um, but he sprayed everyone down. And then after that, um, then they were airlifted to the helicopter and then went to the aircraft carrier and after that he, he actually, um, deflated that life raft and sunk it. And so then that ended up in the ocean.

So it's another way that, you know, we might approach it somewhat differently today to think about if, if there had been contamination, you know, the, the idea of sinking that raft, you know, could have been a little problematic. 

Matt: And then of course they had to wait for the Hornet to come and pick up the capsule, which as you mentioned earlier, because President Nixon had had come, uh, for splash down and to greet the astronauts coming back from the Moon. This actually took longer than it was supposed to, and so the Frogmen had some time to hang out on the capsule while they waited for the Hornet. 

Emily: and it sounds like decompress? Matt and Emily laugh

John: While we were waiting for the ship. What? It was about 45 minutes. We were stuck out there. The astronauts boarded the helicopter.

They were taken back to the USS Hornet. President Nixon was greeting them and all these dignitaries, we had to sit out in the ocean waiting for the Hornet to come aside. And I'm not sure who started it, but we had a little horse play out here. Go ahead Wes…. All right. We had, uh, the, the ‘King of the Space Capsule,’ 

Wes: I think it was King Neptune started it.

John: ‘The King of the Space Capsule!’ And, uh, Clancy feels like he won. 

Clancy: Well, I was a senior officer, right? Anyway, the, yeah, I got up finally. So the idea was to get yourself up in the top of the command module, and then as the other guys tried to throw you off, you threw them off. And, you know, the, the, they were attacking individually.

So you know, one goes in, then another one goes in. And finally, uh, they decided to make a coordinated attack. And I realized I was doomed. But at that time, the Hornet started to come over the horizon. So I executed a little leadership and said, ‘okay guys, time to get ready for recovery.’ And that was the end of King of the Command Module.

Emily: What was it about the way the capsule was gonna get picked up? That meant that they kind of had to hang out with the capsule for a while, kind of waiting around to get picked up.

Teasel:  A decision was made that the USS Hornet would, um, approach the spacecraft and pick it up with, um, a crane that was mounted to the aircraft carrier itself. 

A number of different ideas had been explored, and one of the ideas was keeping the astronauts actually inside the spacecraft the whole time and transporting them from the spacecraft to the aircraft carrier. And then affixing an air sealed tunnel which then they could walk through to the Mobile Quarantine Facility to ensure really, sort of heightened precautions about those biological pathogens. That would've been, uh, sort of a stricter way to deal with, with that issue. 

Um, but then the, there were complications, a bit more dangerous. Um, and so they decided instead to take the astronauts outside the spacecraft, transport them separately to the carrier, um, and then, then bring the carrier to recover the spacecraft and put it on the deck of the ship. And then eventually lower into the ship. 

And then eventually the, that tunnel was affixed to, um, the spacecraft. And then the astronauts could go through the tunnel and they opened up the hatch and then they retrieved things from inside the spacecraft, um, and brought them into the Mobile Quarantine Facility. It's also a moment when, uh, astronaut Michael Collins went back inside that spacecraft and he wrote some graffiti about how it was the best ship to come down the line.

So all that happened when they were on the USS Hornet. 

Matt: One of the things that really struck me when I was preparing to talk to these uh, Frogmen for the first time, I had never met them before, so I looked them up. You know, I had the names. And one of the like first images that pops up when you look for the Apollo 11 Frogmen was the image of one of these guys in a wetsuit covered in very 1960s looking colorful flowers sort of standing on top of the capsule. And I thought there's gotta be an interesting story to how that happened. 

How, like, in the midst of this very buttoned up Apollo program and a very disciplined Navy operation, you end up with a, a diver with colorful 1960s, you know, you might say peace flowers on his wetsuit.

Emily: These are very flower power flowers. 

Matt: Well, it was, it was John who had them on his, uh, wetsuit and, you know, he, he gave us the story behind the flowers.

John: Mike Mallory, I think is the instigator here. Uh, he put a flower decal on Apollo 10, the hatch window. NASA wasn't really excited about that and uh, he kind of got reamed out a little bit. 

So on Apollo 11, we were told no tomfoolery on this recovery.

Well, Mike had brought some more decals. And for some reason, uh, these decals ended up on my wetsuit. I guess because I was 20 years old and I didn't have much to lose. But you have to remember that this is the 1960s. And these flower decals were very popular, uh, with the peace movement. 

Well, we had just come back from Vietnam and this Apollo recovery was kind of bringing the world together and it had nothing to do with the war whatsoever. And, uh, I used to have long hair and stuff in the high school and, uh, it kind of fit my demeanor. And so I had these flowers on my wetsuit. I guess we never did ask permission, we just showed up with them. And, uh… 

Clancy: It's worse than that. John. I, I gave an order not to wear the decal. 

John: Did you really? 

Clancy: I did indeed. imagine my, 

John: Wes? Wes, did he do that? 

Wes: pauses I dunno.

Clancy: You imagine my surprise when, uh, we came alongside and I'm looking up there and there's John on the top of the command module, snaking in the, uh, uh, line to uh, uh, pull the command module and he's got a decal on the front of his wetsuit.

And I thought, oh my God. And the pictures are gonna be, I, oh my, and. So I thought, well, I could make this tough and than, wait a minute, we just finished this job. We held quarantine, we kept the astronauts safe while in our care. To hell with it. All laugh

Teasel: I think what he mentions about being 20 years old is really important here. And it's a great reminder that so many of the people who contributed to the Apollo program were, were very, very young, were in their twenties. This was a, whether you look in the, the military or NASA or all the contractors, this was in general quite a young, uh, workforce.

And I think that this is sort of the,this decision. I mean, he, he talks about, you know, he was a, he was a 20-year-old. Uh, that's part of why he did it. Um, but it's also, you know, it's a part of that Apollo history. And he, along with everyone he was working with, uh, tended to be, uh, quite young, even the astronauts, um, uh, they were just 39. They weren't that old… actually Neil Armstrong was just about to turn 39. He had to do that in quarantine. But for the most part, this was, uh, a very young group of ambitious people who sent humans to the Moon 

Matt: and brought them back safely.

Teasel: And brought them back safely. Exactly. 

Emily: So can we move into the modern era of human space flight and talk a little bit about whether or not the modern day version of Frogmen--SEALs would be involved in the recovery of modern capsules? I'm assuming Artemis is splashing down very reminiscent of Apollo, but it's a bigger capsule 'cause it's four people right. 

Teasel: It is a bigger capsule, but the landing will look a whole lot like the Apollo landing, so it's gonna land closer, um, to the continental US closer to California. But other than that, there's, there's a whole lot of similarity with the way that things have been done for spacecraft recovery for decades.

Emily: So It won't be like what we've seen I don't wanna say recent human exploration, but there was a period of time in which NASA astronauts were coming home, landing in Kazakhstan. And some of the commercial space companies land on land instead of water. But NASA’s trending back to water landings now?

Teasel: And there was also the landings with the Space Shuttle. So those landings were happening on land as well. The astronauts landed on runways. Uh, so this is a bit different than that. 

You do see this variety of, of different types of landings and, um, Russian spacecraft land on land, Chinese spacecraft land on land. Some commercial spacecraft, land on land, you see with Blue Origin does that. And, you also see commercial flights like SpaceX some of those land on water.

With Artemis and Orion are gonna be another ocean landing and, and using a lot of that knowledge and expertise over the past few decades and applying that to those safe recoveries. 

I can say that for the Artemis program, there's already been that training going on. So since the, at least the, the summer of, um, 2025, these crews have been training just in the same way the Frogmen trained to recover the Apollo crews, you know, doing it ahead of time, making sure that they go through all the, the procedures and to ensure the astronaut safety when they come back to Earth.

So a lot of preparation has gone into, you know, making sure the system will also work really well for the Artemis program. 

Matt: Right with Artemis, just like with uh, the Apollo program, we're talking about huge teams of people who are making this possible. And again, that includes the Navy. And as Teasel said, a lot of folks have been already training in the ways that the Frogmen trained. To be sure that they can operate those recoveries and keep the astronauts safe once they come back from the Moon. 

Emily: I hope somebody puts something on a wetsuit, is all I'm saying. 

Matt: Oh, you want a decal? You want decals on a wet suit

Emily: I want a 

Matt: gonna be a, Labubu  

Emily: I don't know what. 

Matt: a, on a wetsuit. I don't wanna see that.

Emily: No, I wanna see like, I don't know, like a, 

Teasel: Maybe the flowers again.

Matt: Mm-hmm. 

Emily: I know, I think it would be cool if somebody did like a retro, like flashback, like an homage to the OG. You know? I think that would be really cool. Um, cause clearly nobody did it after Apollo 11, right? It, it wasn't exactly a trend…it wasn't trending.

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Emily: AirSpace is from the National Air and Space Museum. It's produced by Jennifer Weingart and mixed by Tarek Fouda

AirSpace is hosted by Dr. Matt Shindell and me, Dr. Emily Martin. Our managing producer is Erika Novak. Our production coordinator is Joe Gurr. Our social media manager is Amy Stamm.

A big thank you to Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony for joining us as a guest host for this episode.

Also, thanks to our guests Clancy Hatleberg, John Wolfram, and Wes Chesser, all former Navy Frogmen. The interview was done on July 3rd, 2024 at the National Air and Space Museum.

Did you know the transcripts of our episodes include citations and extra fun facts? You can find them linked in the show notes along with the signup for our totally hilarious monthly newsletter. For additional content photos and more follow AirSpacePod on Instagram and X. We're also on YouTube shorts! Check us out on the museum's page.

AirSpace is sponsored by Lockheed Martin and distributed by PRX. 

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