USA Customs and Moon Astronauts

[Baddad (Marty)]

Hi All,

This should tickle you.

Announced on ABC Radio today PM. When the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from the Moon in 1969, USA Customs required that they declare anything that they need to before they could re-enter the country.

Also last night on Foxtell. What they did not tell you of the Apollo 11 Mission. Very dicey stuff.
Broken circuit breaker on "Eagle",
Eagle landed with only 15 secs of fuel left and
no external door handle on the Moon Lander. Which meant; do not shut door or you stay on Moon.

More on tonight.

Cheers Marty

[renormalised (Carl)]

Wonder if the customs guys asked to see the stamp on the astronaut's passports

[Baddad (Marty)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Wonder if the customs guys asked to see the stamp on the astronaut's passports

Hi Renormalised (Carl),

Heh, heh.

(Fell off my chair) Now I forget my response.

They did leave the country and visited a foreign place after all.

Cheers Marty

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

They did leave the country and visited a foreign place after all

But they didn't leave American airspace. They simply went straight up where there was no air. And they didn't visit a foreign country. so the customs guys had no right to question them.


Oh but hang on they did come down in the Pacific didn't they, but was it still in American waters????

[stephenb (Stephen)]

I believe that is correct.

They also had to fill out a tax return each.

I know that the Air Force Astronauts received an allowance for "temporary duty" which was $25 per day for every day they were away. But the USAF deducted costs for "government quarters and meals".

Charlie Duke once said that he tried to get the USAF to pay him "a nickle per mile travel costs" but they responded that "government transportation was already furnished" True story.

And each astronaut were paid according to their rank in their respective service.

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Originally Posted by Baddad

Hi All,
no external door handle on the Moon Lander. Which meant; do not shut door or you stay on Moon.

More on tonight.

Cheers Marty

The main issue was not the locking system on the hatch, but if the LM cabin accidentally started to pressurise, it would be almost impossible to open it from the outside, even at a low pressure.

[bobson (Bob)]

"Eagle landed with only 15 secs of fuel left"

How did they go back to mothership then

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Originally Posted by bobson

"Eagle landed with only 15 secs of fuel left"

How did they go back to mothership then

Approximately 15 seconds of fuel in the decent stage of the Lunar Module (LM). At liftoff the LM separated and the lifted off in the top part (the ascent stage), which had its own fuel supply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by bobson

"Eagle landed with only 15 secs of fuel left"

How did they go back to mothership then

That was the descent module's engine. The ascent module had the fuel to take off and rendezvous with the command module.

[AussieSky (Greg)]

Here is a scan of the Apollo 11 customs declaration.

http://www.aussiesky.net/misc/NASA_c...eclaration.jpg

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by AussieSky

Here is a scan of the Apollo 11 customs declaration.

http://www.aussiesky.net/misc/NASA_c...eclaration.jpg

That's almost surreal

[Baddad (Marty)]

Hi All,

One problem the Moon Walkers had to overcome, and is not well known, was the circuit breaker incident on Eagle.

After landing, one of the astonauts broke the toggle or button off the circuit breaker. He brushed past it in his rather cumbersome space suit. It had to be the one which was needed to ignite the engines to lift off.

After a little bit of thinking one of them was able to stick his pen into the breaker and manipulate the contacts, activate the ignition circuits and they were off.

Cheers Marty