RIP Michael Collins of Apollo XI

[dewline]

Per his surviving family via his Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/AstroMCollins/status/1387438495040348168

Comments

[krpalmer]

The "he was alone when history was being made" comments did get me thinking of how Mike Collins was fine retiring after Apollo 11, when he could have followed the career path of the Command Module Pilots just prior to him and gone on to land on the moon. That then got me thinking of Apollo 12's CMP Dick Gordon, who wanted very much to command his own mission but had the flight he would have been eligible for cancelled. Still, I should get out my copy of Carrying the Fire, one of my own most-valued books on Apollo...

[dewline]

You're recommending this book for people interested in the history?

[krpalmer]

I am wondering now about other popular texts that go into more "historical detail"; Collins doesn't say a lot about what happened at NASA preceding his joining it. What I'm more drawn to is that he writes with entertaining detail about what he was involved with, and also, perhaps, that as the book is copyright 1974, it doesn't have the weight of "it's been this long now, and just look where we are (or aren't)" that can descend at times... (I do know Collins added some later introductions that could have shown a bit of that, although my copy is a 2001 reprint without them. Having read a library copy of the original printing when I was young, I was pleased to discover the chance to get a copy of my own.)