Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins Dead at Age 90
- Thread starter fubar57
- Start date
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Airframes
Benevolens Magister
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Thumpalumpacus
Captain
Present arms!
Crimea_River
Marshal
Sad news. I too felt sympathy for him all alone circling the moon while Aldrin and Armstrong were making history on the surface.
The Basket
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,712
- Jun 27, 2007
Hero
Thumpalumpacus
Captain
I loves me a good team player. He knew he wouldn't be getting the headlines, but was mission-critical and can-do all the same.
On the news this afternoon coming home from work, they had a snippet of an interview with him, wherein he spoke of "yeah, there were three of us up there, but there were 300,000 workers on the Apollo program, and they're the ones who made it happen."
That is the attitude that makes winners. RiP, General Collins.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
The Basket
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,712
- Jun 27, 2007
I have indeed read it.
And indeed it's good.
Kinda wanna read it again.
And indeed it's good.
Kinda wanna read it again.
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
Joe Broady
Airman
- 99
- May 30, 2019
Here are some heavily abbreviated excerpts from his book "Carrying the Fire" (1974).
"Flying was so much fun it didn't seem right to get paid for doing that and nothing else. Fortunately it came easily to me, and I was able to relax and enjoy it without the constant apprehension over washing out. Graduating with silver wings at Waco in late summer of 1953, I was among the few chosen to go to Nellis AFB for advanced day fighter training. That was the most desirable of assignments, for it was the sole channel into the two fighter wings in Korea."
"At Nellis we really learned to fly — a concentrated, aggressive course designed to weed out anyone who might be a marginal performer in Korea. It was a brutal process as well. In the 11 weeks I was there, 22 people were killed. It was a hectic time, and I'm surprised to have survived."
"Test pilots are taught to perceive, to remember, to record every impression in flight. What happened during a space flight was discussed at the post-flight press conference in as much detail as the press could stomach. But, of course, that was not sufficient. What they really wanted to know was: beyond all that technical crap, what did the crew feel? How did it feel to ride a rocket? How scared were you? If they wanted an emotional press conference, for Christ's sake, they should have put together an Apollo crew of a philosopher, a priest, and a poet. Of course they wouldn't get them back, in all likelihood, because this trio would probably emote all the way into the atmosphere and forget to push in the circuit breaker that enabled the parachutes to open."
"All of us [Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, and John Young, his partner on Gemini 10] tend to communicate at a shallow level about technical things, and about events rather than ideas. We are all four loners, and as a result I am not as close to any of them as the flight experiences we have shared might indicate. John is the most uncommunicative, and I have no idea what flying in space has meant, or will mean, to him. He's still in the astronaut business, working on the space shuttle, which NASA hopes to orbit before the end of this decade. [Collins wrote that in 1974.] I suspect that his interest in solving engineering problems is all consuming, and that he belongs where he is as long as he is physically able to fly."
"Neil was far and away the most experienced test pilot among the astronauts, and Buzz the most learned. Generally quiet and incapable of small talk, Buzz could nevertheless get wound up on any of a number of technical pet projects of his and talk the handle off a pisspot far into the night. Buzz is a very intense, goal oriented individual, accustomed to winning big and not losing at all: West Point, Air Force, MIT, NASA. I think he resents not being first on the moon more than he appreciates being second."
"Neil never transmits anything but the surface layer, and that very sparingly. I like him, but don't know what to make of him, or how to get to know him better. He doesn't seem willing to meet anyone halfway."
"Which brings us to Mike Collins. Fortunately, I have been a poor student all my life, and my parents, concealing their disappointment, seldom pushed me. Thus, the pressures in my various jobs have been mostly self-induced. This, plus a native laziness, has saved me from experiencing the full flavor of the Buzz syndrome."
"I still get irritated and express irrational annoyance. For example, if one more fat cigar smoker yells at me, 'What was it really like up there?' I think I may bury my fist in his flabby gut. I have had it, the same question over and over again. It is the curse of flying in space, this business of answering the same question one million times."
"A close second is autographing things, especially 'To Cousin Esmeralda, and Baby Jane, and all the boys at the fire station, and put down the date, and sign your name so we can read it.' Jesus, lady, I don't do that well by my banker. A perceptive PR man told me one time that there was a special place in hell reserved for autograph seekers. I didn't know what he meant then, but I do now."
"Flying was so much fun it didn't seem right to get paid for doing that and nothing else. Fortunately it came easily to me, and I was able to relax and enjoy it without the constant apprehension over washing out. Graduating with silver wings at Waco in late summer of 1953, I was among the few chosen to go to Nellis AFB for advanced day fighter training. That was the most desirable of assignments, for it was the sole channel into the two fighter wings in Korea."
"At Nellis we really learned to fly — a concentrated, aggressive course designed to weed out anyone who might be a marginal performer in Korea. It was a brutal process as well. In the 11 weeks I was there, 22 people were killed. It was a hectic time, and I'm surprised to have survived."
"Test pilots are taught to perceive, to remember, to record every impression in flight. What happened during a space flight was discussed at the post-flight press conference in as much detail as the press could stomach. But, of course, that was not sufficient. What they really wanted to know was: beyond all that technical crap, what did the crew feel? How did it feel to ride a rocket? How scared were you? If they wanted an emotional press conference, for Christ's sake, they should have put together an Apollo crew of a philosopher, a priest, and a poet. Of course they wouldn't get them back, in all likelihood, because this trio would probably emote all the way into the atmosphere and forget to push in the circuit breaker that enabled the parachutes to open."
"All of us [Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, and John Young, his partner on Gemini 10] tend to communicate at a shallow level about technical things, and about events rather than ideas. We are all four loners, and as a result I am not as close to any of them as the flight experiences we have shared might indicate. John is the most uncommunicative, and I have no idea what flying in space has meant, or will mean, to him. He's still in the astronaut business, working on the space shuttle, which NASA hopes to orbit before the end of this decade. [Collins wrote that in 1974.] I suspect that his interest in solving engineering problems is all consuming, and that he belongs where he is as long as he is physically able to fly."
"Neil was far and away the most experienced test pilot among the astronauts, and Buzz the most learned. Generally quiet and incapable of small talk, Buzz could nevertheless get wound up on any of a number of technical pet projects of his and talk the handle off a pisspot far into the night. Buzz is a very intense, goal oriented individual, accustomed to winning big and not losing at all: West Point, Air Force, MIT, NASA. I think he resents not being first on the moon more than he appreciates being second."
"Neil never transmits anything but the surface layer, and that very sparingly. I like him, but don't know what to make of him, or how to get to know him better. He doesn't seem willing to meet anyone halfway."
"Which brings us to Mike Collins. Fortunately, I have been a poor student all my life, and my parents, concealing their disappointment, seldom pushed me. Thus, the pressures in my various jobs have been mostly self-induced. This, plus a native laziness, has saved me from experiencing the full flavor of the Buzz syndrome."
"I still get irritated and express irrational annoyance. For example, if one more fat cigar smoker yells at me, 'What was it really like up there?' I think I may bury my fist in his flabby gut. I have had it, the same question over and over again. It is the curse of flying in space, this business of answering the same question one million times."
"A close second is autographing things, especially 'To Cousin Esmeralda, and Baby Jane, and all the boys at the fire station, and put down the date, and sign your name so we can read it.' Jesus, lady, I don't do that well by my banker. A perceptive PR man told me one time that there was a special place in hell reserved for autograph seekers. I didn't know what he meant then, but I do now."
