On July 24th 1969 the crew of the historic first manned mission to the moon and their spacecraft Columbia arrived on the deck of the U.S.S. Hornet.
The flight of Apollo 11 had been an unqualified triumph. The goals laid out by President John F. Kennedy had been attained. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had walked on the dusty plains of the Sea of Tranquillity and had returned safely to the Earth with a treasure trove of unparalleled scientific information.
Now it was the turn of the world's scientific community to try and place all of this new knowledge into perspective. Hundreds of people around the world jostled for access to scraps of the lunar rocks and dust.
As always NASA's own managers, engineers and scientists were the first to pore over the datails in an effort to maximise the return from future missions.
Just prior to the launch of Apollo 12, NASA issued the Apollo 11 Mission Report. The document contained everything from the crew's observations about the reflection off their faceplates to the interaction between the Lunar Module's footpads and the dusty lunar surface.
In Apollo 11 - The NASA Mission Reports Volume 3 the first comprehensive study of man's first mission to another world is revealed in all of its startling complexity.
