Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

Collins' role in Apollo 11 is often minimized in the public conciseness, but I find it particularly fascinating from a human perspective. In certain ways it seems even scarier than Armstrong's and Aldrin's jobs. They at least had more direct control over their success in landing on the moon. Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of abandoning his crewmates to die on the moon and fly back to Earth himself. Meanwhile no one had ever been as far from other life as he was on that flight. When he was on the far side of the moon he was truly alone in a way that no other person had ever been in human history.

I've always thought the CSM commanders had the most incredible and challenging role of the three Apollo astronauts. They were undoubtedly the "most alone" humans ever — at least on a physical level. Every other hour they'd transit to the far side of the moon and would be 2200 miles (3600km) away from the nearest two humans and hundreds of thousands of miles/km away from everyone else who's ever lived. Not only that, they lost radio contact. The silence and solitude must have been wild.

For upwards of three days.

From the NYT obit:

“I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life,” [Collins] wrote in recreating his thoughts for his 1974 memoir, “Carrying the Fire.”

“If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God only knows what on this side,” he added. “I like the feeling. Outside my window I can see stars — and that is all. Where I know the moon to be, there is simply a black void.”

I love the photo he took, where in the frame there was literally every human who was alive and has ever lived, except Michael Collins himself:

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/a11_h_44...

RIP Michael Collins. Jethro Tull has a song about Michael Collins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU7BYLmAiV8 "For Michael Collins, Jeffery and Me"

    I'm with you L.E.M
    Though it's a shame that it had to be you
    The mother ship
    Is just a blip from your trip made for two
    I'm with you boys
    So please employ just a little extra care
    It's on my mind
    I'm left behind when I should have been there
    Walking with you

Huge fan. "Carrying the Fire" was one of the greatest finds in my (rural Florida, 1970's) high school library. I'd never heard anyone say "I bore easily", let alone someone as responsible as an astronaut, I was awed by the vulnerability, and encouraged that boring easily wasn't necessarily debilitating. A great book, a great man.

In 1970 (shortly after my birth), my grandmother bought me my first Christmas ornament for the tree. It was a glass Michael Collins astronaut figure. Over the years, it has taken a couple tumbles, lost a leg and most of the helmet, but every year it goes up to the top of the tree in a prominent place. I was struck with a profound sense of sadness today when I heard of his passing mostly due to my connection to him via this simple ornament. He will continue on in that place of prominence and I hope to pass this on to my children and their children at some point.

I'm glad his memoir, "Carrying the Fire", got mentioned. It's one of the best astronaut memoirs.

For anyone interested in the story of the astronauts who went to the moon, Moondust is a great read. In the early 2000s (if I remember right), the author traveled around the world to visit each of the living men who had set foot on the moon. He asks them about their experiences, both on the moon and in the time since the moon missions ended. Some of them treat him like any interviewer, but toward the end as they realize he has actually connected all of their stories once again, they share a bit more than what comes out in typical interviews.

It's a wonderful blending of life in the world at that time, the story of our collective quest to reach the moon, and the individual stories of humans who actually went there.

- https://www.amazon.com/Moondust-Search-Men-Fell-Earth/dp/152...