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Apollo 11 Spaceflight, First Manned Moon Landing
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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.
Years later, it was publicly revealed that Nixon had prepared a speech to be given in the event the Lunar Module had failed to lift off from the lunar surface, which would have resulted in Armstrong's and Aldrin's deaths, similar to common newspaper obituary or government contingency plan procedures and policies.
In accordance with the recently passed Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, the astronauts were placed in quarantine for fear that the Moon might contain undiscovered pathogens and that the astronauts might have been exposed to them during their Moon walks. However, after almost three weeks in confinement (first in their trailer and later in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health. On August 10, 1969, the astronauts exited quarantine.
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