MSC director and quarantined Apollo 11 crew, July 1969. Footage of Manned Space Center (MSC) director Robert Gilruth talking to the press with the quarantined Apollo 11 astronauts. The astronauts, after a flight from Hawaii, had arrived at Ellington Air Force Base, Texas, USA, in the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) on 27 July 1969. The three US astronauts (Neil Armstrong, Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin, Michael Collins) had safely returned to Earth following their historic mission to the Moon. They had achieved the first landing by humans on the Moon on 20 July 1969 as part of NASA's Apollo 11 mission (16-24 July 1969). With the assembled press watching, the families of the astronauts greeted them and talked to them by telephone at the windows of the MQF. The astronauts were then taken in the MQF to the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, USA, where they were kept in quarantine for 18 days until 10 August 1969. |