Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, who orbited the moon alone while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic first steps on the lunar surface, died Wednesday. He was 90.
During an interview with NASA on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, he had this to say:
Usually, you find yourself either too young or too old to do what you really want, but consider: Neil Armstrong was born in 1930, Buzz Aldrin 1930, and Mike Collins 1930. We came along at exactly the right time. We survived hazardous careers and we were successful in them. But in my own case at least, it was 10 percent shrewd planning and 90 percent blind luck. Put LUCKY on my tombstone.
His book Carrying the Fire is worth reading.
The loneliest person in the world, 1969. OTOH he was the crewmember most likely to make it back home when something goes down. RIP.
ReplyDeleteA story I remember hearing about Mr Collins: after Armstrong and Aldrin docked with Columbia, they rapped twice on the hatch. Collins responded with, “Who’s there.”
ReplyDeleteRIP Michael Collins
Dale
You know, if we hadn't seen all this with our own eyes ...
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that came to mind was a line from an old Jerry Jeff Walker song, Desperados Waiting for a Train ~ To me he was one of the heroes of this country, so why's he all dressed up like them old men? (I remind my son) That train's a'comin ...
I agree: Carrying the Fire is an awesome book.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they came along at just the right time -- when America was still great, when we were can-do America, and before America descended to its current can't-do mentality where it took a South African billionaire to even put Americans in space again, nevermind getting man back to the moon or to Mars, both of which seem science fiction now even though we got men to the moon with technology far less advanced than today's.
ReplyDelete