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[i]On Earth my dad worked for McDonnell Douglas and was an engineer for them. One of his many jobs was the crane that lifts all the spacecraft in the VAB (Vertical Assembly Building). This is how he knew many of the astronauts and also because he was a part time bartender at a local hang out for fly boys in Cocoa Beach. (Those stories go to my grave.) Now what is this object and what did it do. After Gus Grissom blew the bolts on the capsule door before the divers could put the flotation collar around it and the space capsule sunk, NASA said "what can we do to prevent this from ever happening again?" Well they came up with a very lightweight flotation ball made of metal. It is about 1 and 3/8 around the weld and 1 and 1/4 top to bottom. They would place them in all the spaces between the outer capsule wall and the inner wall that contained all the wiring, communication, and life support systems. It was tested in large water tanks at the space center and it worked well and added very little weight, now the space capsule was unsinkable. After Apollo 11 splashed down and returned to Florida they opened up the capsule and to check out all the electronics they had to remove all the flotation balls. These were given to very special high ranking personnel and astronauts. Most of the balls are gone and were never thought to be of any value, but that's where my dad comes in. Days after the splas down he ran into Neil at the cape. He asked if he could have one of the flotation balls for his son Michael (that's me). Neil gladly gave one to my dad and I have kept it all this time.[/i]
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