Michael collins astronaut

Michael Collins, the command module pilot who served as an integral part of the legendary Apollo 11 crew, has died. He was 90 years old. “We regret to share that our beloved father and grandfather passed away today, after a valiant battle with cancer," his family said in a statement Astronaut Michael Collins wearing a spacesuit in June 1969. Ralph Morse / The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images "We will miss him terribly. Yet we also know how lucky Mike felt to have lived the life he did. We will honor his wish for us to celebrate, not mourn, that life. Please join us in fondly and joyfully remembering his sharp wit, his quiet sense of purpose, and his wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat.” Often considered the "forgotten" astronaut, Collins was part of the three-person crew that was Apollo 11, the first spaceflight that landed humans on the moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, while Collins flew the command module Columbia alone in lunar orbit 65 miles above. Group portrait of Apollo 11 lunar landing mission astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. NASA / The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images "Well, sure I wish I could have walked on the moon but I can say with the utmost honesty, I was thrilled to have the place that I had, to be one third of John F. Kennedy's culminating dream. "...

In 1969, President Richard Nixon greets the Apollo 11 astronauts in quarantine after their mission to the moon. The Apollo 11 crew members (from left) are Neil Armstrong, Collins and Buzz Aldrin. AP When Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon, and Armstrong uttered the famous phrase, "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed," Collins was in orbit, 60 miles above, just as busy, and just as excited, telling the team back in Houston he was listening to communications with his comrades, and it was "fantastic." Aldrin and Armstrong were on the lunar surface just under 22 hours. The world was transfixed, seeing them bunny-hop along, take pictures and collect lunar samples during a single, short moonwalk. All the while, Collins circled the moon, looking down at the barren lunar landscape and peering back at the Earth. "The thing I remember most is the view of planet Earth from a great distance," he said later. "Tiny. Very shiny. Blue and white. Bright. Beautiful. Serene and fragile." "He was the keystone of the mission" As he orbited, he could talk to controllers half the time, but when he was on the back side of the moon, he was completely cut off. It was because of this part of the mission that some dubbed him the loneliest man in humanity. As he recalled in a 2016 NPR interview, he didn't think of it that way. He said, "The fact that I was ... out of communications, rather than that being a fear, that was a joy because I got Mission Control to shut up for a littl...

Michael Collins described himself as a perpetual optimist, perfectly satisfied with his role on Apollo 11, but admitted he was irritated by the cult of celebrity. Photograph: Allstar Collection Michael Collins described himself as a perpetual optimist, perfectly satisfied with his role on Apollo 11, but admitted he was irritated by the cult of celebrity. Photograph: Allstar Collection On 20 July 1969, Michael Collins, who has died aged 90, became the most solitary human in the universe – even if As the command module pilot, on $17,000 a year, Collins was, he later wrote half-jokingly, “the navigator, the guidance and control expert, the base-camp operator, the owner of the leaky plumbing – all the things I was least interested in doing”. He was also, thought Aldrin, probably Nasa’s best-trained command module pilot. Michael Collins taking a break as command module pilot on the Apollo mission in July 1969. ‘We were our nation’s envoys,’ he wrote. Photograph: AP Preceded by a By 2pm that day Collins had separated the command and service module from the Saturn V rocket, turned it, docked with the lunar module Eagle, “nestled in its container atop the Saturn like a mechanical tarantula crouched in its hole”, as he described it, and disengaged from the dying rocket. With his companions, Collins set off for orbit, four days later, 60 miles above the “withered, sun-seared peach pit” of the moon and, for 24 hours from 2.46pm, his sole proprietorship of the “orbiting men’s room” th...

(1930-2021) Who Was Michael Collins? Inspired by Gemini 10 mission, where he performed a spacewalk. His second was Apollo 11 — the first lunar landing in history. Collins received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early Life Michael Collins was born on October 31, 1930 in Rome, Italy, where his father, United States Army Major General James Lawton Collins, was stationed. After the United States entered World War II, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Collins attended St. Albans School. During this time, he applied and was accepted to West Point Military Academy in New York, and decided to follow his father, two uncles, brother and cousin into the armed services. Military Career In 1952, Collins graduated from West Point with a Bachelor of Science degree. He joined the Air Force that same year, and completed flight training in Columbus, Mississippi. His performance earned him a position on the advanced day fighter training team at Nellis Air Force Base, flying the F-86 Sabres. This was followed by an assignment to the 21st Fighter-Bomber Wing at the George Air Force Base, where he learned how to deliver nuclear weapons. He also served as an experimental flight test officer at Edwards Air Force Base in California, testing jet fighters. Astronaut Collins made the decision to become an astronaut after watching John Glenn's Mercury Atlas 6 flight. He applied for the second group of astronauts that same year, but was not accepted. Disappointed, but undaunted, Collins e...

View Tweet 1. Upon liftoff to the moon, Michael Collins said… “We are off! And do we know it, not just because the world is yelling ‘Liftoff’ in our ears, but because the seats of our pants tell us so! Trust your instruments, not your body, the modern pilot is always told, but this beast is best felt. Shake, rattle and roll!” Photo by NASA on Unsplash 2. He thought looking down at Earth from Space was pretty spectacular… “I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of, let’s say 100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. The all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced.” Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 3. Michael orbited the moon alone whilst Buzz and Neil walked on it… “I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. 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 knows what on this side.”

The realisation that the normally icy-cool astronaut was so obsessed by such an outcome puts a fresh perspective on the celebrations that will, this weekend, absorb the United States as it commemorates the moment, on 21 July 1969, that an American first walked on another world. Apollo 11 will be presented as a flawless technological triumph at jamborees across the nation, including a special reception at the National Air and Yet at the time, worries that the mission would end in disaster consumed nearly all of those involved in the programme - despite their apparent calm. And no one was more stressed than Collins, it appears. In his case, the astronaut was obsessed with the reliability of the ascent engine of Armstrong and Aldrin's lander, Eagle. It had never been fired on the Moon's surface before and many astronauts had serious doubts about its reliability. Should the engine fail to ignite, Armstrong and Aldrin would be stranded on the Moon - where they would die when their oxygen ran out. Or if it failed to burn for at least seven minutes, then the two astronauts would either crash back on to the Moon or be stranded in low orbit around it, beyond the reach of Collins in his mothership, Columbia. All three astronauts believed there was a real chance such a disaster would occur. Armstrong thought his prospects were only 50-50 of making it back to Earth. And so did Collins, the pilot of Columbia and one of the world's most experienced aviators. Nor were the astronauts alon...