Apollo 11 Spaceflight, First Manned Moon Landing

At 16:44 UTC the drogue parachutes had been deployed and 7 minutes later the command module struck the water forcefully. The command module landed upside down but was righted within 10 minutes by flotation bags triggered by the astronauts. "Everything's okay. Our checklist is complete. Awaiting swimmers," was Armstrong's last official transmission from the Columbia. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to the command module to prevent it from drifting. Additional divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and position rafts for astronaut extraction. Though the chance of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, it was considered a possibility and NASA took great precautions at the recovery site. Divers provided the astronauts with Biological Isolation Garments (BIGs) which were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board the Hornet. Additionally astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium-hydrochloride solution and the command module wiped with Betadine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The raft containing decontamination materials was then intentionally sunk.
A second Sea King helicopter hoisted the astronauts aboard one by one, where a NASA flight surgeon gave each a brief physical check during the 0.5 nautical miles (930 m) trip back to the Hornet.
After touchdown on the Hornet, the astronauts exited the helicopter, leaving the flight surgeon and three crewmen. The helicopter was then lowered into hangar bay #2 where the astronauts walked the 30 feet (9.1 m) to the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) where they would begin their 21 days of quarantine. This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life and the quarantine process dropped.
President Richard Nixon was aboard Hornet to personally welcome the astronauts back to Earth. He told the astronauts, "As a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before." After Nixon departed, the Hornet was brought alongside the five-ton command module where it was placed aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. The Hornet sailed for Pearl Harbor where the command module and MQF were airlifted to the Johnson Space Center.