Michael Collins: The Forgotten Member of Apollo 11

Michael Collins: Com­mand Mod­ule Pilot Apollo 11

Forty years ago this Mon­day,� Neil Arm­strong and� Buzz Aldrin took the first steps on the moon. Dur­ing all the cel­e­bra­tion around this his­toric event a key mem­ber of that crew is often for­got­ten, Major Gen­eral� Michael Collins.

Collins decided to join NASA after John Glenn’s his­toric flight. The thought of cir­cling high above the earth drove him to pur­sue a spot in the sec­ond group of astro­nauts that formed the Gem­ini pro­gram. Collins first flight into space took place on Gem­ini 10. This flight was designed to test orbital ren­de­vouz pro­ce­dures which would be cru­cial for a suc­cess­ful flight to the moon. In this flight Collins also per­formed an EVA, stand­ing through the hatch and using a sex­tant to take mea­sure­ments. In his biog­ra­phy he described the feel­ing as “like a Roman god rid­ing the skies in his chariot”

Apollo 11 insignia

Fol­low­ing the Gem­ini pro­gram Collins begain train­ing in the Apollo pro­gram. Collins trained as the backup pilot on Apollo 8 and was sub­se­quently named the flight’s CAPCOM (the per­son in the NASA flight con­trol room respon­si­ble with talk­ing to the astro­nauts dur­ing the flight). After the suc­cess of Apollo 8, he was announced as the com­mand mod­ule pilot of Apollo 11. This flight was slated to attempt the first lunar land­ing con­tin­gent on the suc­cess­ful flights of Apollo 9 and 10.

Collins trained for every con­tin­gency on Apollo 11. Dur­ing the train­ing he com­piled a 117 page book with 18 dif­fer­ent ren­de­vouz and dock­ing pro­ce­dures. Collins also designed the iconic mis­sion patch used by Apollo 11. The idea for the eagle came from a National Geo­graphic which he traced and drew the lunar sur­face beneath, the olive branch a sym­bol of peace was added by a com­puter expert at the simulators.

On July 20, 1969 the world was glued to their tele­vi­sion sets watch­ing the his­toric first steps of Neil Arm­strong and Buzz Aldrin all the while Michael Collins main­tained his rou­tine in soli­tude aboard the Colum­bia com­mand mod­ule. Collins had to main­tain the lunar orbit and coor­di­nate the ren­de­vouz and dock­ing of the Lunar Lan­der at the end of the mis­sion. Every lunar orbit there was a 48 minute period where com­mu­ni­ca­tion was lost with earth mak­ing him the most iso­lated man in the uni­verse. A mem­ber of Mis­sion Con­trol made the obser­va­tion, “Not since Adam has any human known such soli­tude as Mike Collins.” Collins said in his biog­ra­phy that he did not share this sen­ti­ment and that he felt “aware­ness, antic­i­pa­tion, sat­is­fac­tion, con­fi­dence, almost exultation”

Although never men­tion­ing it, I feel that there may have been another weight on him dur­ing those lonely orbits. Before and dur­ing Apollo 11 many thought that there was a great pos­si­bil­ity that the astro­nauts may crash on the sur­face or have a fail­ure that would not allow them to return to orbit. The mar­gin of error was minis­cule. This fact has been made more clear recently with the pub­lish­ing of an unde­liv­ered speech by Pres­i­dent Nixon offer­ing his con­do­lences to the fallen astro­nauts. This was pre­pared as a con­tin­gency of a dis­as­ter on the lunar sur­face. Had this hap­pend Collins would have been faced with leav­ing his friends and crew­mates stranded on the moon and tak­ing the long jour­ney back to earth alone.

In the end Apollo 11 ended with the his­toric lunar land­ing and a tri­umphant splash­down back on earth. With­out the skills and focus on the mis­sion of Michael Collins, Apollo 11 may never have com­pleted that his­toric jour­ney set­ting the pace and set­ting prece­dents for the future lunar astronauts.