From the beginning of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission, all United States manned (crewed) space flights ended with a parachute landing of the spacecraft in the ocean. Therefore vessels of the United States Navy (usually carriers) were dispatched during these missions to await the returning spacecraft in the vicinity of the predicted splashdown point for search and recovery operations. With the coming of the Space Shuttle however, splashdowns became a thing of the past. This section lists all vessels used to recover United States spacecraft which were landed at sea, both manned and unmanned test vehicles as well as those carrying primate passengers or "astrochimps."