During the 1960s and 1970s, U.S. astronauts returned to Earth in splashdowns at sea, where they would be picked up by helicopter. Here, an SH-3 Sea King from the carrier U.S.S. Lake Champlain lifts Gordon Cooper, the command pilot of the Gemini V spacecraft, out of the water on August 29, 1965.
The Sea King, from Sikorsky Aircraft (now a division of United Technologies), had a crew of four, a ceiling of nearly 15,000 feet, a range of more than 500 nautical miles, and a cruising speed of 120 knots. One model of the Sea King, the Sikorsky VH-3D, has long served as the
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