Remembering a humble hero: Apollo 11’s Michael Collins

 

This week’s death of Michael Collins at age 90 from cancer --- the Apollo 11 command module pilot who stayed in orbit 69 miles above the moon while Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin” took their fateful flight in the lunar module or LEM down to the Sea of Tranquility --- should be mourned by all Americans.
That’s because Collins was truly a rare American hero: a humble man whose task was nonetheless vital to the success of John F. Kennedy’s vow to land men on the moon and bring astronauts back home safely before the end of the 1960s.
Collins, who had practiced the docking maneuvers essential to the return of the moon walkers aboard Gemini 10, had to be able to do the same in real time: capture the LEM known as Eagle, so Aldrin and Armstrong could join Collins and return to the Earth in the Columbia command module.
It was said that Collins --- who was largely out of radio communications with mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston because of how the moon blocked the path to the Earth --- was the loneliest human being since Adam preceded Eve in the Garden of Eden. But Collins nonetheless performed his task flawlessly and with the coolness of the Air Force pilot that he had been before joining NASA's stable of astronauts.
And that unquestionably made him a hero just as much as Aldrin and Armstrong --- who took that “giant leap” for mankind – were.
That’s why I’d like to honor the memory of Collins by posting this column that I wrote for The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA, on July 19, 1969, for the 50^th anniversary of the moon landing.
Collins’ death leaves Aldrin as the only surviving member of the historic Apollo 11 crew. (Neil Armstrong died in August of 2012).

This column was originally published on July 19, 1969 in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA:

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
-- Neil Armstrong to Mission Control, after landing the lunar module on the Sea of Tranquility at 4:18 p.m. EDT, July 20, 1969

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
-- Neil Armstrong’s first words from the moon, at 10:56 p.m. EDT, July 20, 1969

"After the flight of Apollo 11, we – Armstrong, Aldrin and I – visited I think, 29, different cities in a whirlwind tour,” he was quoted in the Boston Globe. “And I was amazed everywhere we went, people said, ‘We did it, we did it.’ "
-- Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins, on how the moon landing unified the world for a short time.

In an era when we take Face Timing with relatives, friends and business associates halfway around the globe for granted, it’s hard to convey the significance of those first words uttered by a human from another celestial body 50 years ago.
What’s the big deal, people who weren’t around then may wonder? Why should the mission of Apollo 11 – the spectacular liftoff at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, the landing and first steps on the moon on July 20 and the splashdown in the Pacific Ocean July 24 of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the command module pilot -- be viewed with such reverence by those who witnessed it?
Those are inevitable questions by people living in a time blessed by unlimited technological advances and cursed by a deeply cynical society that has lost its sense of history and perspective. People who don’t share political views are regularly demonized on Twitter, which has created an atmosphere where leaders prefer bickering to working together. That explains why so many not alive in the 1960s – who think Apollo 11’s grainy footage of the first steps on the moon is just another excuse for a 2019 TV commercial -- are less than excited by the anniversary.
But those of us alive then remain as enthusiastic about the landing as we were 50 years ago, and the reason goes beyond nostalgia for a “simpler era,“ because we know that era was far from simple. We instead revere the moon landing, because we know it happened in a time of turmoil.
We recall that from May 25, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy committed the nation “to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth” in a speech to a joint session of Congress just 20 days after Alan Shepard Jr. became the first American in space with a suborbital flight, the nation faced many challenges -- any of which could have derailed JFK’s ambitious goal.
Think we’re in a bad place now? Try dealing with a hot Cold War that nearly a year and a half after Kennedy’s moon speech put us on the brink of nuclear war over missiles in Cuba. Before Apollo 11’s liftoff, the nation also would experience three major assassinations (Kennedy in 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968), the escalation of the Vietnam War, racial strife that spilled over into riots and massive war protests.
Yet throughout, the national resolve was such that millions worked tirelessly to advance the space program from the learning stages of Mercury and Gemini to Apollo. Private enterprise and the government were in synch as they weathered setbacks and tragedy (the Jan. 27, 1967 launch pad fire that killed Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom, the first U.S. spacewalker Ed White and rookie astronaut Roger Chaffee) to meet Kennedy’s goal.
Through it all, like so many of my peers, I remained fascinated by space. I followed the Mercury and Gemini missions and was thrilled at the successes of Apollo 7-10, the latter being a dress rehearsal for the landing. Like my fellow Americans, I was ready for history to be made when Armstrong and Aldrin began their descent to the lunar surface.
Ironically, I had to rely on a relic of the 1960s, a transistor radio, to follow the astronauts’ perilous journey in the lunar lander to the surface, because my 16-year-old self was visiting Edaville Railroad in Carver with my cousins from Canada, and we were waiting for the train to arrive while the landing was happening.
Nearly seven hours later, however, I was glued to my parents’ black-and-white Zenith TV as first Armstrong, then Aldrin, took their historic steps on the moon. To say I was thrilled was an understatement; seeing two Americans walking on the moon was surreal, and made me feel as though we could accomplish anything.
The country’s unity was recalled recently by Collins. Speaking at a lunar-landing event at the John F, Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester, he discussed the nation’s optimism. “After the flight of Apollo 11, we – Armstrong, Aldrin and I – visited I think, 29, different cities in a whirlwind tour,” he was quoted in the Boston Globe. “And I was amazed everywhere we went, people said, ‘We did it, we did it.’ “
I, too, thought anything would be possible in space as I envisioned moon colonies, and by the dawn of the 21^st century, steps on Mars. But reality soon set in. By the time Apollo 13 took off, the networks were no longer broadcasting live transmissions from the moon voyagers, and only went live when the explosion happened and Apollo 13 became a story of survival.
Apollo missions were later canceled as the nation lost its will to explore, and after the last lunar mission, Apollo 17, in December of 1972, spare Apollo parts were turned into our first space station, Skylab. Then the space shuttle was built without any plans for manned planetary trips or a return to the moon. The nation is still relying on hitching rides with the Russians to get to the space station until new rockets are ready.
While disappointed that my exploration fantasies never came true, it’s important to remember that none of today’s advances would have been possible without the space program. So while you browse Twitter and Facebook or search YouTube for footage of Apollo 11 or the latest viral cat video, remember none of it would have been possible without the astronauts’ heroism.
As John Glenn, America’s first man to orbit the Earth (who died Dec. 8, 2016 at 95), said of Armstrong on his death at 82 on Aug. 25, 2012: “When I think of Neil, I think of someone who for our country was dedicated enough to dare greatly.”
All of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts deserve that praise and our thanks for our present and future technological marvels.
Larry Kessler, a retired Sun Chronicle local news editor, covered several space shuttle missions, including the first one on April 12, 1981.

 

The link to this column on The Sun Chronicle’s website: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/features/stories/moon-matters-why-the-lunar-landing-of-50-years-ago-was-important-then-and-remains/article_10d99193-5277-5f4c-9b5f-c91daa89d1a4.html

This story, which was also published on July 19, 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, written by Sun Chronicle Staff Writer David Linton --- who has been a lifelong follower of the space program --- can be found at this link: 

https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/moon-memories-50-years-after-humans-first-walked-on-the-lunar-surface-local-residents-recall/article_2cb9d91a-2891-5756-921a-34253f44faed.html


Test your knowledge of Apollo 11 and the Apollo program by taking Larry Kessler's quiz, which also appeared in The Sun Chronicle on July 19, 2019:

https://www.thesunchronicle.com/test-your-knowledge-of-the-apollo-missions/article_a62f5003-4430-5a53-bedb-603a559adce4.html