Quote:
On 2002-11-12 17:22, JayUtah wrote:
Why did the landing of all Apollo return capsules take place out of sight of the public and even of the pickup carrier crews?
The Apollo capsules were recovered in the open ocean for obvious practical reasons: the water splashdown simplified the construction of the spacecraft, and the remote location provided for safety so that the spacecraft would not plop down on someone's head by accident. It was also partially dictated by the return trajectory.
It is patently untrue that the splashdowns happened out of sight of the carrier crews. In fact, predictions of the splashdown points were so accurate that the carriers had to be positioned a half mile or so away from the projected splashdown site to avoid the hazard of actually landing on the carrier deck.
There were literally thousands of Navy witnesses to the actual splashdowns.
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Not to mention that they were all aired on live television (or is that supposed to have been faked, too?).