More important to Lovell and the other astronauts here tonight, however, was article 5 of the document—the safe return of space travelers clause. This provision guaranteed that any astronauts or cosmonauts who veered off course and splashed down in a hostile ocean or thumped down in a hostile wheat field would not be scooped up and carted off by security forces of the violated country. Rather, they would be treated as “envoys of mankind,” to be “safely and promptly returned to the state of registry of their space vehicle.”
