Historic capsule makes trip to body shop

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Paul Flipse
  • 920th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  A relic from NASA's Apollo program was an eye-catching sight as it was transported via flatbed truck from its home at the Air Force Reserve's 920th Rescue Wing here to Port Canaveral July 1.

The white, 11 x 13-foot, 9,000-pound space capsule, on loan to the 920th Rescue Wing from the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum, has been kept here since 1992 and is in need of restoration.

It was moved the roughly 12 miles up State Route A1A through Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral to Excell Coatings Inc. at Port Canaveral, where it will spend the next month being refurbished. During the trip, motorists and pedestrians alike stopped whatever they were doing to take in the odd sight of the space module mingling with local traffic.

Smithsonian officials are pleased with the restoration project and are happy to renew the loan agreement for the capsule, according to Darrell Hankins, resource advisor for the 920th Rescue Wing. 

The capsule, listed in the Smithsonian's Web database as: "Boilerplate, Command Module, Apollo, #1206," was used in England by U.S. Air Force rescue personnel in the 67th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron at RAF Woodbridge to train in recovery operations for both the Apollo and Skylab programs.

The 920th Rescue Wing provides emergency medical, rescue and recovery support for all space shuttle and rocket launches. The unit will assume an even-more prominent role in NASA's next manned-spaceflight venture, the Constellation program, scheduled for initial launch in 2014. Wing pararescuemen and aircraft will be responsible for tracking and retrieving astronauts from space capsules that will parachute into the ocean upon return from space, as was the case with manned spaceflight until the onset of the space shuttle program.

The 920th Rescue Wing is comprised of 1,500 Airmen, including three pararescue squadrons, two HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter squadrons and an HC-130P/N extended-range Hercules squadron.