all right I guess we should just say
what's going on we thought it'd be a
good time to talk about a part of the
Apollo 11 mission that often gets
overlooked which was the quarantine
including time in a refitted Airstream
trailer and a lab you're gonna get to
see some of the engineering that NASA's
really famous for but applied to a
totally different problem which is how
do you keep a lunar plague from hitting
the earth yeah we've done a few other
episodes of this where one of us knows
something the other doesn't this time
we've all just been cramming on
quarantine facts about this Apollo 11
quarantine and seeing so many men in
like short-sleeved shirts and we're
gonna talk to Amy title from vintage
space that came about Phil and I both
really like so yeah this is the
quarantine edition of history club yay
I wanted to talk about the stuff before
we get with Amy though like about that
period of like 20th century and
vaccinations in general the moon-landing
is happening in July of 1969 it was
coming off to music time in the middle
of 20th century measles mumps polio he's
had all been beaten back and like we
felt pretty good about being able to
contain potential diseases even though
it's extremely low probability that
anything contaminant was on the moon if
there was even a chance that they could
bring something back it would be truly
novel and potentially devastating to
life on Earth can you see that yeah oh
wait this is the quote that I love they
will be treated not as heroes but as
bearers of the most virulent devastating
plague the world has ever known I love
that M plague is spelled wrong this is
how venom in spider-man got to earth so
this is important stuff this is an idea
that we've become very familiar with now
because we have the corona virus so
dangerous is because no humans ever had
it before and if there were an alien
lunar plague no human had ever had it
before so it's it's kind of the same
threat which is why they took no chances
and put them in quarantine it's a very
blunt approach but it's really
interesting that that was kind of like
this is our surest bet they've developed
the need for this quarantine and then
they've got this problem of how to
adjust eclis make it happen to get these
astronauts from the middle of the ocean
all the way to the lunar receiving
laboratory environment at all yes in
theory in theory Pete will be in the
background IP I Pete nice to meet you
yeah I gave him some catnip so he's like
a little bit stoned right now it's
pretty fun so this first clip that I
have is let me load it up
[Music]
so what they're practicing is they want
to get the astronauts out of the command
module and onto a helicopter basically
with as little contamination as possible
to try to preserve this quarantine it
makes sense that they had to train to do
this but it's still crazy to think about
it that like you're going through this
excitement of being about to go to the
moon and your training for how you're
gonna get in desert quarantine suit but
it does make sense I mean how bad would
it be if like the mission went off
beautifully everything was great like
rah rah America landing on the moon and
then they get back and they forget to
put on the suit right and like someone
falls in the ocean and then everyone
gets sick like womp womp that'd be big
damper so I kind of get it it's actually
from when they were training with the
b.i.g suits or big suits and that's the
biological isolation garment right yeah
um I've only read it so I I don't know
how it was pronounced in conversation
they'd be way too cumbersome to not just
say big suit you know right especially
NASA the land of the acronym yeah so
here they're all just kind of chilling
waiting to go through the trainings I do
love how much all this footage shows
like being an astronaut is a lot of
sitting and listening quietly yeah
it looked like they brought it down
upside down - yeah they dumped it upside
down and then inflate the balloons to
flip it laid it
and that flotation collar is exactly
what it sounds like it is ABS buoyancy
and gives them a platform to step out of
cuz again like we learned from Gus
Grissom in 1961 right when his hatch
blew early and the capsule filled with
water and sunk he kind of need to give
some kind of barrier from the water
rushing into this capsule otherwise
again you end on a very poor note after
a great mission there's a very large
issue with the whole quarantine thing in
this move of like you just opened the
capsule quarantine for Apollo 11 and
Apollo 12 as well started the moment
they closed the hatch after the lunar
EBA the moonwalk
so everything that had been exposed was
sealed up and of course on the way back
you're not opening the capsule at all
there's nothing to introduce anything
new no one's interacting with it so
you've got this thing that's been sealed
for like four days and then you just
like open it up to the air and then
reseal it like it's a bit of a weak link
in the chain there but there was no
better option they also they sprayed
them down right they like threw the
suits in put them on and then sprayed
them with chemicals and so and so here
that's them they've gotten out they're
wearing the b.i.g suits and this is this
is just a practice run but this is
pretty much how it happens in and so
then the next stage of their journey is
they're in their big suits and then they
make it onto the USS Hornet which is a
big aircraft carrier and their goal is
to enter the mobile quarantine facility
so that is the next video that I have
lined up here that's why up here it says
Hornet plus three on me mobile
quarantine facility because they're sort
of the astronauts are the additional
three were on the porting oh wait I
think this is the clip when they walk
out of their suits the guy just in a tie
just sprays it down after a blow I love
that and so the people who went in there
it was it was a dr. William carpenter
and then John Harris Aki was like the
project engineer basically and so those
two guys are going inside in the hey
Nina
with these astronauts for the entire
period that the mobile quarantine
facility is traveling according to this
and all of the stuff that was not human
would be flown directly to the lunar
receiving laboratory
you want to kind of get that there as
quickly as possible so that can get into
a small plane and flown from the carrier
deck ship meanwhile has to go to a base
it has to dock somewhere at which point
the mqf will be mobile as its name this
very fancy Li named thing was just a
converted Airstream trailer so that
gives you a sense of how not big it was
yeah because they had to put it on a
plane and a ship and and drive it around
the bottom of this plane opens and you
just kind of roll this thing in and then
you fly it to Euston
[Music]
[Applause]
Gale Armstrong played ukulele of it and
there's a great picture of him and I
think it's through the glass in that
window that Nixon was talking them
through it's got this like ghostly
artifact in it that gives it this like
ethereal feel almost so just like he's
he's in this little suit just kind of
sitting there just like low-key
strumming ukulele about the NQF they
also like adjusted the air pressure
right so it'd be lower pressure inside
so if there was a leak air would go in
but not out yeah they did regulate it
that way and they've got these like
souped up bars on the bottom right like
like they dish the wheels and they had
to like reinforce it structurally oh and
they had a microwave which is very new
right in 1969 that's like a high-tech
innovation the mini fridge this is
looking like a bit like a college dorm
[Music]
they're landing at the lunar receiving
laboratory or lrl which is in Houston it
was especially built near the John Cook
is now the Johnson Space Center that was
like one of the most state-of-the-art
Florentina Bowl facilities even the
staff that went in had to go through
like UV showers and you could not have
any medical thing you couldn't be
pregnant to work in there everything was
super sterile anyone that was
interacting with the crew had to be very
very clean and very healthy to make sure
that the crew did not get sick but also
that they did not get you sick is this
the press room right here yeah where
they're celebrating his birthday that's
the press room yeah so you can see like
it looks like on the other side of the
wall are a bunch of women
so probably the wives and family so they
can be there and celebrate but they
can't actually be in the same space but
in this side of the glass were where we
are watching from is the clean facility
and this is where they are celebrating
Neil Armstrong's 39th birthday because
he was still in quarantine when that
happened this is so cute I've never
actually seen this footage of them
making the cake I've seen him cutting
and serving the cake it's this awesome
if there was found to be something
potentially bad in one of the samples or
if the crew got sick and there was some
containment breach of the sick party
everyone who worked in the lrl signed a
waiver saying they agreed if they were
exposed to a contaminant that they would
quarantine themselves for an indefinite
period afterwards as directed by NASA
there's a lot in this like the medical
offices there's a lot of beds there's a
lot of tables and things in the offices
and living space like that's a lot of
people and if the second diagram shows
you that that's a third of the area of
the entire LRL like this is a big space
for a lot of people to live and work in
addition to the quarantine of the
astronauts what kind of experiments are
going on in the other half of the lunar
receiving laboratory doing were looking
at the rocks and classifying the rocks
bio classifying if need be to figure out
exactly what they had gotten and figure
out what's gonna happen with these
samples next I think Apollo 11 didn't
bring back to too much because they all
did one short a VA later missions
brought back a lot more and so I got I
found some pretty crazy tables of some
of the tests that they did on the
biological elements I I'm gonna tell you
all this one of the experiments they did
was they round up some moon rocks made a
formula out of it and injected it into a
Japanese quail just to see if it made
the bird sick like why were they gonna
do that to humans
hey I mean did they do they think moon
moon rock dust is gonna be the new lake
street drug like dragged all the kids
are on moon dust and I mean I think
that's pretty much what they did to the
mice too
[Music]
they spend their time in the lunar
receiving laboratory and then they get
out they go on this world tour
everything's fine hip-hip-hooray
[Music]
is there anything about the Apollo 11
quarantine either procedurally or like
kind of the context of how people were
feeling about it at the time that we
didn't talk about how much NASA learned
over its relatively short existence
before Apollo 11s launch to anticipate
the worst and hope for the best
[Music]
anticipating the crew dying at lunch
anticipating the crew dying I mean there
were abort procedures for every mission
stage there were speeches for if they
died on the moon down to what do we do
if they pick up something deadly in
space I think it really speaks to how
many people have to be involved to
predict or to prepare for something like
this it speaks to how well NASA really
thought outside the box especially after
the Apollo 1 fire to anticipate
everything that could possibly go wrong
and put everything in place to mitigate
that so that if the worst happened they
would at least be the best prepared you
know the lrl was was built purposely for
bringing them back from the moon it was
not like let's just outfit this building
this was a custom facility for this need
and it's it's a lot of planning a lot of
preparation but a lot of like
acknowledging just how bad things could
be to hopefully never have to get there
[Music]
people find you on YouTube and you've
also released a book what is that about
it's called fighting for space I always
have to read my own subtitle the two
pilots and their historical battle for
female spaceflight and it's effectively
a dual biography of two pilots who were
navigating being professional fliers at
a time when it was not common for women
to be professional pilots and while
America was making the transition from
aviation to spaceflight and what that
meant for women that wanted to be
involved