Please join the USS Hornet Museum as we host our annual Apollo 11 Splashdown/Space Exploration Day on July 23rd from 10 am to 5 pm. We have a very exciting program for the whole family and hope you can make it this year! We will have a presentation from NASA, a panel on Space Exploration and many other fun activities for everyone.  

Special Guests include: 

Sarah Cruddas. Sarah is a space journalist, international TV host and award winning author. She has an academic background in astrophysics and is a global thought leader in the growing commercial space sector. On television Sarah hosts UFO Conspiracies with Craig Charles on Sky History and is one of the hosts of ‘Contact’ on Discovery Channel and Science Channel – which airs in the US and internationally. She is also a leading voice of space on various other television shows in the UK and US, regularly appearing on Sky, BBC, CNN, People Television, ITV News, Channel 4 News and Channel 5 News. As well as on various documentaries on Discovery Channel and Science Channel and UK shows including Coast, BBC Sunday Morning Live and Derren Brown. https://sarahcruddas.com/

James Anderson. James Anderson is a NASA historian based at Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. He holds master’s degrees in the history of science and in film production. One of his current projects is preparing a history of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, mission. The rover is planned for delivery to the lunar surface in late 2023 under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. 

Seth Shostak Seth Shostak is Senior Astronomer and Institute Fellow at the SETI Institute. With degrees in physics and astronomy from Princeton University and Caltech, he has a long history of research in radio astronomy and in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI. Seth has written more than 600 popular articles on science and technology, and hosts the weekly science radio show and podcast “Big Picture Science.” He has authored four books  

Amaresh Kollipara As the Chief Revenue Officer of OffWorld, Amaresh is creating markets for an autonomous robotic workforce starting with large-scale deployments around the world, with eventual applications in space. He is also an Emmy-nominated VR producer and space industry executive with extensive launch and satellite advisory experience. He is a Founder and Managing Partner of Earth2Orbit, LLC, which is a consulting firm with a satellite industry focus. He strongly feels that the future of commercial space, and the future of humanity’s relationship with space, is dependent on the development of useful applications based on space infrastructure.
He currently serves on the boards of the SETI Institute and the Space Frontier Foundation. He served as a Principal of the Space Angels Network, a professionally managed global network of investors. 

Daniel Wheeler Bursch (born July 25, 1957 is a former NASA astronaut, and Captain of the United States Navy. He had four spaceflights, the first three of which were Space Shuttle missions lasting 10 to 11 days each. His fourth and final spaceflight was a long-duration stay aboard the International Space Station as a crew member of Expedition 4, which lasted from December 2001 to June 2002. This 196-day mission set a new record for the longest duration spaceflight for an American astronaut, a record simultaneously set with his crew mate Carl Walz. 

Clarence (Clancy) Hatleberg attended Dartmouth College on an NROTC scholarship. He graduated in June 1965 with a B.A. degree and was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy. His goal was to join the Underwater Demolition Teams but the Navy required that he serve aboard a ship before he was eligible for UDT training. In June 1966, he received orders to attend the Basic Underwater Demolition and Seal (BUDS) training located in Coronado, CA. After completing BUDS he attended Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) School prior to serving in the Vietnam War in charge of two Underwater Demolition Team 11 platoons in the Delta and later off the coast leading a Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV) Unit. He was awarded the Purple Heart Medal; he and his men were also awarded Presidential and Naval Unit Citations. After returning from Vietnam, he was put in charge of the Apollo 10 and 11 UDT Swimmer Recovery Units. In mid-May 1969, while training to recover Apollo 10, Lieutenant Hatleberg was selected to be the officer in charge and decontamination swimmer for the recovery of Apollo 11, mankind’s first landing on the moon. 

Robert Fish graduated from high school in Orlando, FL in 1966 and attended the University of Virginia on a Naval ROTC scholarship.  After college, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. The majority of his service time was spent in Okinawa as a shift supervisor for the USMC Western Pacific data center, managing computer systems that supplied the Vietnam war effort. In 2000, Bob joined the Board of Trustees of the USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum. In 2019 Bob was elected Trustee Emeritus. He researched the Navy’s role in the recovery of the 1960’s NASA manned space-flights and is a recognized national authority on the subject, having written numerous articles as well as participating in the Smithsonian NASM GE Aviation lecture series.  He also created the award winning Apollo 11 spacecraft recovery exhibit onboard the museum and published a highly acclaimed book about the recovery of Apollo 11 called Hornet Plus Three. 

Bill Miklos, Hornet Docent, Air Force veteran, longtime Lockheed employee and Space expert, will be giving his presentation “An engineering View of the Apollo 11 Mission, Reentry, Splashdown , Recovery and Contamination Control” in the Wardroom a few times during the day. Schedule will be posted.

By popular demand we will also have our friends from the local Star Wars costume clubs, the Rebel Legion-Endor Base, 501st Legion-Golden Gate Garrison, the Wolves of Mandalore and the Droids on board for you to see and take pictures with.  

We will have a Model Rocket display and a special exhibit: A TRAVELING SPACE EXHIBIT (Educating Adults and Children about Space Exploration through the use of Space Artifacts, Models and Lego.) 

 We will also have a book signing event with Sarah Cruddas and her children’s book “The Space Race, The Journey to the Moon and Beyond” after the rest of the day’s program is finished.  

Schedule:

Exhibits: All Day
Star Wars Clubs: 11:00-3:00

Wardroom:
11:00-12:30 Bill Miklos (Engineering View of Apollo 11 Mission, Reentry, Splashdown, Recovery & Contamination Control)-will conduct two 45 minute presentations)

Main Stage:
12:30-1:30 Bob Fish/Clancy Hatleberg (Apollo Splashdown/Recovery)
1:30-2:00 James Anderson (NASA presentation)
2:00-3:00 Space Exploration Panel (Sarah Cruddas, Amaresh Kollipara, Daniel Bursch, Seth Shostak)

3:00 – Book signings

Membership saves you money! If you attend 2 events per year with your family then you would save money by purchasing a membership! Please see our Membership page for more information: https://uss-hornet.org/support/membership