Can’t imagine how good it feels to step out of that tiny space after 10 days with three housemates.
And then bobbing around in the Pacific for 90 minutes.
Commander last to leave his ship. Yay!
Very happy for the successful re-entry! But now I want to know how well the defective heat shield held up. Was it a mess like with Artemis I?
Pretty sure that will be the priority inspection item, yes, see how it took this ride.
Shortly followed by the lavatory, I must suppose.
There was an old “Dilbert” strip, which I couldn’t find online, where the pointy-haired boss introduced “Cuborg 2000”, a cubicle that resembled a small teardrop camper.
“These tubes attach to various parts of your body so you never need to leave.”
Dilbert: “….various parts?….”
“Let’s just say you don’t want to get these two tubes mixed up. And the Cuborg 3000 is expected to have air holes.”
Back to our regularly scheduled programming: I held my breath when those drone parachutes popped off, and the ship went into a fraction-of-a-second freefall before the main chutes deployed!
The first two astronauts were observed being taken off the ship before MS-NOW went to a commercial break. My sister lives in San Diego, on a hilltop from which she can see the ocean, and neither saw nor heard anything, although they’re about 25 miles out.
Are they going to drift back to the West Coast?
Y’know, the Murtha is an amphibious dock ship, so could they have been transferred to one or more of those RIBs and just powerboated into the well deck, rather than do the aerial transfer?
Maybe they were worried about the weather being worse, and an astronaut being possibly unwell. It seemed like they arranged it so that the astronauts did the absolute least possible.
Bit of trivia according to CNN: apparently a capsule like that, based on experiences with Apollo, stinks to high heaven when opened. Especially one with a non-functional toilet!
The good news is that astronauts, partly through acclimatization and partly due to the nasal effects of zero gravity, don’t smell it. The other good news is that, thankfully for the recovery crew, the capsule hatch is opened in the open air, with hopefully a good breeze! 
Some brisk earth-based showers may be in order here!
Named for Jack Murtha, the Democratic Congressman? Better than being a laundry ship, I reckon.
Alas, they’ve got to go to DC, where Trump will sharpie his psychotic sig on the heat shield which worked well enough. But maybe not going with the lowest bidder would be good for NASA. I’m sure Jack Murtha would agree.
Several days ago, I saw a YT video, IIRC about whether the flags left by Apollo would still be visible or standing on the moon, and the host mentioned that Armstrong and Aldrin “left some other junk behind.”
Without being too graphic, chances are, this consisted of things that had come out of the astronauts’ bodies, and that would include Michael Collins.
Was it Apollo 11 that left a camera that transmitted the LM’s takeoff that knocked the flag down? That weight and the other things you mentioned left more weight for moon rocks and dust. I’m sure all six of the Apollo missions left the Moon as pristine as possible. We’ll gather all that up, set the flag upright, and do some science when Pan-Am starts scheduling regular service again.
A plaque. six USA flags, multiple golf balls and Alan Shepard’s 6 Iron from Apollo 14 and lunar rovers. The Moon is like a museum, and somehow the USA left it open to Planet Earth, where they could have used Maritime Law. I think the space-faring nations have agreed to share the whole Solar System. Except Europa.
I’m sure the Navy will let them take Hollywood showers. That is going to feel lin
Ke Heavan.
I was at the horse race book when Artemis splashed down, and while we could not convince the staff to switch any TV over to the splashdown, I had my phone. A group of us horseplayers paid no attention to racing for about a half-hour as we watched the splashdown on my phone. Note that to get us to not pay attention to racing takes some doing, so you can imagine how impressed we were.
And a hearty “Well Done!” to the crew and to NASA. Looking forward to more such missions!
Okay. Thanks guys.
My understanding is that the flags, besides being knocked over by the blast from the Ascent Module, are also bleached out by the intense UV from the Sun.
Michael Collins came out of an astronaut’s body? And was left on the moon?
A reminder that shit comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root, meaning “cut,” that gave us “scissors” and many other words. The idea being that feces are a part of our body that gets separated from the rest of it.
No shit?
What is the procedure to open the capsule hatch from the outside? I assume it can be done without anyone inside having to get up out of his or her seat and pull any handles or turn anything?