Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 683
Document II-56
Honorable Clinton P. Anderson
Chairman
Committee on Aeronautical and
Space Sciences
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington 25, D.C.
Jun 4 1969
This is further in response to your letter of May 15 regarding the recovery
procedures for the Apollo 11 mission.
The subject of possible back-contamination of the earth’s biosphere through
Apollo operations has, of course, received our very serious attention for some
time. NASA and other agencies of Government have spent considerable effort to
insure that everything possible is done to prevent such contamination consistent
with safe accomplishment of the mission. To this end, in 1964 an Interagency
Committee on Back Contamination (ICBC) was established to provide expert
guidance to us on all matters concerning possible back-contamination. This
Committee, composed of members from the Departments of Agriculture,
Interior, Health, Education, and Welfare (U.S. Public Health Service), National
Academy of Sciences and NASA, has the responsibility of insuring that our Apollo
mission plans do no violate the integrity of the Earth’s biosphere. Hence the
preventive procedures we plan to employ must have the ICBC’s approval before
implementation.
A very difficult problem and decision we and the ICBC have had to resolve is the
one you mention, that is, all constraints considered, determining the optimum
recovery procedure which would protect the lives of the returned astronauts while
at the same time providing the lowest practicable possibility of back-contamination.
Our efforts have been directed toward both recovery procedures and methods to
prevent uncontained lunar material from entering and leaving the Lunar Module
and the Command Module.
The current astronaut-recovery procedure, which has been approved by the ICBC
for the Apollo 11 mission, involves egressing them from the spacecraft into a raft
and transferring them by helicopter to the recovery ship where they will enter the
Mobile Quarantine Facility. The astronauts will don Biological Isolation Garments
prior to departing the spacecraft if sea conditions permit; otherwise the garments
will be donned in the life raft.