National Air and Space Museum curator Allan Needell describes the original flotation system. Apollo 11 Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins returned to earth from the first Moon landing on On July 24, 1969 aboard the command module Columbia just before dawn in the Pacific Ocean east of Wake Island and 24 km (15 mi) from the recovery ship, USS Hornet. Because the original Apollo 11 command module "Columbia" is located at the downtown Washington, DC Museum, a boilerplate Apollo command module, used for egress training during the Apollo era, is used to display the Apollo 11 water recovery artifacts. The Command Module landed upside down but was righted in several minutes by flotation bags triggered by the astronauts. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached an anchor to the command module to prevent it from drifting. Additional divers attached additional flotation collars to stabilize the module and position rafts for astronaut extraction.

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