TIL the Apollo 11 astronauts had to go through immigration in Hawaii when they splashed down because they had left U.S. borders.
I love that 'moon' is written under 'place.'
Apollo 13 Jack Swigert requested a Tax Filing extension while headed to the moon:
"How do I apply for an extension?" he asked from space to those in Mission Control, who began to laugh. "Things kind of happened real fast down there and I need an extension. I'm really serious."
Flight director Glynn Lunney later reassured the astronaut: American citizens who were out of the country received a 60-day filing extension. "I assume this applies," he told the astronaut, who was already far from the planet at that time.
[source]
I love how this was added to the Apollo 13 movie. As they're floating about feeling cold and miserable Swigert gets told he has been granted an extension as he is "definitely out of the country".
Such a good movie
See I would have just assumed this was an incredible line added by some hilarious writer. The fact that it’s true is just chefs kiss perfect
After Apollo 13's safe return, Grumman Aerospace sent North American Aviation an invoice for "Towing fees" as the lunar module was the active ship during much of the outbound and all of the inbound leg of the mission.
A channel 5 watcher, I see
TIL Andrew has never seen The Matrix
TIL US citizens have no constitutional rights when being held by border control on US soil. That was a real WTF for me.
Or took "no" as an answer from a woman.
How good is/was that series, this must the the riskiest thing he's done though. But the level of journalism is something we rarely see these days.
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That's-a-me!
Love channel 5 news. Andrew is great at what he does.
I love the "to be determined" if there is anything on board that can cause a health hazard (they did quarantine astronauts when they first came back from the moon)
The quarantine turned out to be needless, but I understand why they did it. You have to prove landing on the moon is not a biological threat and that's pretty much the only way to do it.
I like how unnecessarily bureaucratic this is in terms of immigration.
A friend-of-a-friend of mine took part in an international swimming event which involved swimming from one country to another, with a boat keeping pace in case anyone got in trouble.
He was swimming back to his home country, so he never bothered to get his passport stamped or anything, he just went home. The next time he interacted with passport control they got mad at him because his passport still showed him in the origin country of the swimming. He basically took the attitude "bro it's not a big deal, relax, I'm here now, just stamp me" and they gave him a whole bunch of grief and then just adjusted his paperwork and sent him on his way, because what else can you do.
Then for the next year's event he did it AGAIN, and the second time the passport people discovered the issue they were even more angry, and he still just kind of took the attitude "bro you don't run me, I'm not malicious and IDGAF about your system, just stamp me and let me go to Italy or whatever."
Things you can do when you're the correct ethnicity for $100
As unnecessary as this seems, you never know:
They could be illegal aliens...
You know, we should build a wall…
A Dyson Wall... and Proxima Centauri will pay for it!
We're gonna have to make the Moon's name more specific if we ever survive long enough to colonize other planets. It's like if Earth's name were Planet.
Idk if it is necessery, we already named moons like "europe"
"Earth" literally just means "the dirt under your feet".
But most of us don't identify our location so broadly. We say what state or country we're in, and identify culturally that way. I imagine that won't change when there are people living on the Moon. They'll identify by the name of the base or settlement they live in.
Just means "moon."
There's also scans of their "travel re-imbursements" which has "Moon" as the destination
The most elephantine of Big Dick Energy
Admit it. The reason for the "to be determined" was the lunar flying squid they found in his luggage.
You leave my father out of this!
MOON
So, like, Moon Pennsylvania?
Yeah, they were visiting Keith Moon there.
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Neil Armstrong sure has a cool autograph
All three of those men are superior to me just based on how well they sign their own names versus my shitty grade school-level cursive scribble.
Agreed. I can't imagine how he came upon that method of making a capital "A".
I have this image of astronauts in their suits standing in line at an airport now.
So I guess this is the US government admitting we don't own the moon 🙁
That's already the case due to a treaty.
Treaties are made to be broken.
I'm more interested in where the "border" is in this case. At what altitude are you no longer considered to be in US airspace?
There's not really any definite border. FAA controlled airspace generally ends at flight level 600 (around 60,000 feet, although flight levels are defined by air pressure not distance from the ground, so the actual altitude can vary). Above that will be uncontrolled airspace, though that doesn't necessarily mean the US won't claim sovereignty there.
The Outer Space treaty, generally considered the first step in establishing space law, stipulates that "outer space" is for the benefit of all mankind and not subject to sovereignty claims by any country. However there isn't a legal definition of where outer space begins. The Karman line (100km) is a common practical definition. However the US has flown spacecraft (notably the shuttle) below 80km above Canada, without asking for permission first.
Practically speaking, there are as yet not enough craft flying at these kinds of altitudes for real legislation to be necessary. The spacefaring countries mostly work it out between them on a case by case basis.
Gotta make sure they weren't smuggling any illegal aliens.
Not sure if this is what inspired OP, but I just learned the fact about astronauts going through customs yesterday, in a video posted by Channel 5 on YouTube. The context was that Andrew Callahan, who is a US citizen, tried crossing the Rio Grande with Coyotes for journalistic reasons, and he learned the hard way that there are NO exceptions to the rule requiring entering through customs. Not for journalists, and not for astronauts.
They (well, Buzz Aldrin, at least) also filled out a travel expense voucher to get reimbursed for driving his personal car, including from his home to the air force base from which he flew to Florida, as well as around Cape Kennedy, during his "official travel."
His official itinerary is more detailed than the one provided on the customs form (all dates are, of course, in July of 1969):
7-7 | LV: Residence | 0445 | POV (note: POV means "Privately Owned Vehicle." Aldrin reported 8 miles for this leg of the journey and was reimbursed 56¢.)
7-7 | AR: EAFB | 0500 (note: EAFB is "Ellington Air Force Base" in Houston)
7-7 | LV: EAFB | 0530 | Gov. Air
7-7 | AR: Cape Kennedy, Fla. | 0800
7-16 | LV: Cape Kennedy, Fla. | 0832 | Gov. Spacecraft (note: Saturn V serial number SA-506, of course)
7-19 | AR: Moon | 1325
7-21 | LV: Moon | 2400 | Gov. Spacecraft (note: transfer from NASA LM-5 Eagle to NASA CSM-107 Columbia not listed)
7-24 | AR: Pacific Ocean | 0600 (note: at 13°19′N 169°9′W in the North Pacific, about 920 miles or 1480 km from Honolulu)
7-24 | LV: Pacific Ocean | 0800 | USN Hornett (note: Aldrin misspelled the name of the US navy aircraft carrier Hornet here.)
7-26 | AR: Hawaii | 0900 (note: Pearl Harbor, to be specific)
7-26 | LV: Hawaii | 1200 | USAF Plane (note: the particular plane was a C-141B Starlifter designated 66-7958 USAF, which I cannot find a name for.)
7-27 | AR: EAFB | 0100
7-27 | LV: EAFB | 0215 | Gov. Veh. (note: the Gov. Veh. in question was the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), a converted Airstream trailer. They would stay in the MQF for three weeks. Actually, they boarded the MQF on the Hornet ; it was then loaded into 66-7958 in Hawaii and unloaded in Houston.)
7-27 | AR: LRL | 0300 (note: LRL is the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, building 37 at Johnson Space Center in Houston.)
A notation beneath this itinerary reads "Government meals and quarters furnished for all the above dates."
Aldrin also reported 100 miles of "official vicinity travel" at Cape Kennedy for the nine days between his arrival and departure, for which he was reimbursed $10. Another note reads "POV authorized for official vicinity travel at Cape Kennedy, Fla. in leiu (sic) of rental car." I can't find any information about what POV this is; he left his personal vehicle in Houston when he flew on a government plane to Florida, so perhaps he owned two cars?
There are three handwritten notes beneath that which I cannot read but claim $8.00 and $19.25, as well as $4.50 of charges that he subtracts from the total; these three are listed in the "subsistence" column. The grand total claimed on this voucher are $33.31 ($279.17 in 2024 dollars), and it was approved by someone named "C.W. Bird."
My mother-in-law is ex-army and she takes advantage of every single deal and loophole she can find. I don't blame her and I don't blame Buzz. I especially don't blame Buzz. He put his life on the line to go to the fucking moon. Reimburse him for whatever the hell he wants.
Not to mention, the guy spent three weeks cooped up in an Airstream trailer with nothing to do but eat steaks and drink whiskey. I'd guess that it's not impossible he did this itinerary to stave off boredom one day.
Oh, absolutely. And tbh, $280 is nothing to sneeze at. I would definitely report that kind of money, even if I had just been to the moon. Maybe especially if I had.
3 days in box that’s 4 by 11 meters with 2 other dudes.
Yep. 4, actually; I guess they had two NASA volunteers in there with them.
That customsb official was 100% grinning like crazy when he typed "moon"
Illegal aliens have always been a concern.
It sounds like a harmless prank on the astronauts that everyone pretended to take really seriously.
At least I hope the astronauts didn't know beforehand, and I hope they got a kick out of it.
I don't know that it was a prank, just typical bureaucracy. They left the borders of the U.S., meaning they have to legally be allowed back in. The real question is why they decided that wasn't necessary for splashdowns in international waters for spaceflights that didn't go to the moon.
Probably because the craft that were just in orbit could be considered “in flight” for their entire duration.
Aircraft in flight are considered under the jurisdiction of the country they took off from. So if the spacecraft started in Florida, landed in international waters, and was recovered by a US vehicle, then the astronauts never technically left the jurisdiction of the United States.
But because Apollo 11 did land somewhere, it could be argued they ended the first flight and began a second one when they took off. Due to this, they had left US jurisdiction as they landed and left the vehicle. This means they left the country, and need to go through immigration.
It’s also a piece of the official paper trail that helps to prove to other nations that the US did land on the moon, and that placing the flag in the moon was symbolic and not an attempt to annex the moon. If Apollo 11 had claimed the moon as US territory, then they wouldn’t have needed to fill out immigration papers.
This is my favorite thing on the Internet so far today! Thanks for sharing!
There also is a special exemption for US Customs to use for items returned from outer space. General Note 3(e) of the HTSUS exempts the items from having to have an entry filed or duties paid for those items as well as corpses and telecommunications.
Wouldn't Michael Collins need a different form? His would need to say moon orbit not moon. I would expect bureaucrats to care about that.
He was in lunar "territorial waters," so to speak, so it probably counts.
If Earth orbit doesn't count as leaving Earth, then Lunar orbit counts as being in Lunar territory.
I just watched Life last night, and you know, this seems sensible.
e: link
They knew that was extremely unlikely anything biological would have been brought back from the moon since they knew that the moon's surface should be sterile. They just couldn't prove it, so they had to take precautions.
True. I’m just salty about the inanity of that movie’s ending.
Americans are funny as fuck! 😂
I mean someone had to establish precedent. Can't have people just coming from the moon without their papers.
"You know you could have take a more direct route to Honolulu, right?"
See this is what life was like before Google maps. You never knew which route was the fastest
Back then, everything was done through a travel agent and they often got kickbacks if you took certain routes. No doubt some agents got a bonus for routing them so circuitously.
Right before gmaps, you had mapquest. You had to print out your route on paper. Read while driving, and if there was any deviance in the route like construstion, fuck you.
"We took the scenic route."