Snagging space sample return with helicopters?

[Alluvian]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/04/06/solar.booty/index.html

The article is somewhat confusing to me, I am not really sure what they plan to learn from this matrix of exotic materials exposed to solar radation/light.

The part that leaped out at me was the following:

To preserve the delicate solar particles in their matrix of gold, sapphire and diamond, specially trained helicopter pilots will snag the return capsule from mid-air using giant hooks. The flight crews for the two helicopters assigned for the capture and return of Genesis are former military aviators, Hollywood stunt pilots and an active-duty Air Force test pilot.

I had no idea we could do that.  I would have thought they would have crashed it into the ocean to recover it there.  Snagging it out of midair with helicopters???  I had no clue.

Have we done this sort of thing before?  Am I just way out of date?  Anyone know why they would do this experiment in the first place?

[daveNYC]

They used to retrieve early spy satellite film canisters in a similar manner.  They would yoink them in mid-air using a cargo plane.

[Roac]

I am not really sure what they plan to learn from this matrix of exotic materials exposed to solar radation/light.

It isn't so much just exposing something to sunlight and see what happens - they are actually collecting the solar wind itself, to see what the Sun is vomiting into space.

Have we done this sort of thing before? Am I just way out of date?

Yeah, you're out of date - that's like 40+ year old technology.

[Alluvian]

Thank you, and apologies for being way out of date.  I suppose grabbing it on the way down with a parachute is easy.  For some stupid reason I had this image of them grabbing it at full speed and not lazily wafting to the ground with a parachute.  Total mental block there.

I took a double dose of stupid this morning I guess.

[HaemishM]

Some sci-fi authors have postulated that starships (or at least inter solar system ships) could travel using "solar sails" that collect and are driven on particles contained in the so-called "solar winds." Who knows? Maybe there's some super-duper rocket fuel in them thair winds.

[daveNYC]

That was more about the physical impact of the wind particles.