MV ''Retriever'' was a World War II-era

Landing Craft Utility A Landing Craft Utility (LCU) is a type of boat used by amphibious forces to transport equipment and troops to the shore. They are capable of transporting tracked or wheeled vehicles and troops from amphibious assault ships to beachheads or pi ...

transferred to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

from the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

. It was used to train

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s for post-

splashdown Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft or launch vehicle in a body of water, usually by parachute. This has been the primary recovery method of American capsules including NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Orion along with th ...

ocean recovery operations and water egress from their command modules during the Gemini and

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

programs from 1963 to 1972. It operated primarily in

Galveston Bay Galveston Bay ( ) is a bay in the western Gulf of Mexico along the upper coast of Texas. It is the seventh-largest estuary in the United States, and the largest of seven major estuaries along the Texas Gulf Coast. It is connected to the Gulf of ...

and the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

. MV ''Retriever'' was one of 500 Mk V LCTs built (numbered, not named). LCU-1530 was acquired by NASA under a reimbursable loan agreement dated 4 March 1963, from the U.S. Army at Ft. Eustis, Virginia. The sides of the vessel's midsection were cut down, a new bridge built and a hoist added for NASA use. It was under the jurisdiction of the

Manned Spacecraft Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight in Houston, Texas (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in ...

's Landing and Recovery Division, and its

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

s included Frank M. Gammon, Sr., CWO, US Army and Dino E. Bernardi, USCG (1971–72). In 1972, NASA transferred the MV ''Retriever'' to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in Gloucester, Virginia, where it was used to support marine research in the Chesapeake Bay area until it was retired.

Gallery

File:MV Retriever 1.jpg,

Gemini 4 Gemini 4 (officially Gemini IV) With Gemini IV, NASA changed to Roman numerals for Gemini mission designations. was the second crewed spaceflight in NASA's Project Gemini, occurring in June 1965. It was the tenth crewed American spaceflight (in ...

backup crew training, February 25, 1965 File:MV Retriever.png, ''Retriever'' in 1963

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Retriever NASA vehicles Landing craft of the United States Navy Maritime vessels related to spaceflight 1954 ships