My friends and I have been deriving much amusement from the comms issues. We can fly people around the moon, talk with them, send back high res video, but talk to the boat that’s close enough to swim to? Forget about it!

Note: next time, pack a walkie talkie. ;-)

Just like in the year 3000, we will still ask "Can you hear me?" in video meetings.

i was thinking maybe astronauts can be disoriented when splashing down and that's why they figured they should ask if the right buttons were being pushed?

Cellphone coverage notoriously flaky in the Pacific.

This is the same mission where the commander radioed to Houston, “I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working”.

...and informing them which button was the PTT button. She had to say it, but it'd be hard not to react to that.

I give you Apollo 16:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuv6TVv0r44

Good thing they have redundant systems.