RIP Astronaut Mike Collins.

[pip08456]

One of the pioneers of space. RIP Mike.

[Hom3r]

Sad Day.


I sat on my dad's knee when man walked on the moon, I don't remember this as I was 7 months old.

[pip08456]

For those interested here's a Hard Talk interview with him 50 yrs after Apollo 11.

The often overlooked 3rd member of Apollo 11, RIP.

[pip08456]

I think this is a good idea. It will spend most of its time orbiting the moon alone just as he did waiting while Sheppard and Aldrin were on the moon.

Rename the Lunar Gateway to Collins Lunar Gateway in memory of Michael Collins

[Hom3r]

The scary thing is that he faced the possibility of coming home alone, if issues prevented Neil & Buzz leaving the lunar surface.

Originally Posted by Hom3r

The scary thing is that he faced the possibility of coming home alone, if issues prevented Neil & Buzz leaving the lunar surface.

He apparently had been worried about that, obviously, and had taken with him 18 different plans for it.

While I was reading that I saw this quote at the bottom of this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/s...ies-at-90.html

“I have been places and done things you simply would not believe. I feel like saying: I have dangled from a cord a hundred miles up; I have seen the earth eclipsed by the moon, and enjoyed it. I have seen the sun’s true light, unfiltered by any planet’s atmosphere. I have seen the ultimate black of infinity in a stillness undisturbed by any living thing.

“I do have this secret,” he added, “this precious thing, that I will always carry with me.”

Makes me think he inspired the Blade Runner quote.

[Anonymouse]

It would've been tricky to make re-entry alone; that was considered an absolute last resort. Astronauts are trained to be team players more than in almost any other profession. Mike's role in the mission is, understandably, overlooked, but Armstrong and Aldrin would never have made it back without the Command Module because the Lunar Module wasn't a self-contained spacecraft, as it wasn't possible (tech- and weight-wise) to build such a thing then. He must've been lonely in lunar orbit.

Apollo 11 is one of my earliest memories; I was 3 1/2 and I don't think anyone in the family slept for the entire landing mission. I miss those days when it all seemed possible. It still does. It still is.

And (slightly O/T) anyone who doubts Apollo achieved anything other than sticking it to the Soviet Union is invited to read Heinlein's Expanded Universe Part II, the chapter titled 'Spinoff' - a lot of things people take for granted came out of the program: CAT scans, ultrasound, anything with miniaturised long-life power sources, robotics and, of course, computers. The entire 10 years of Apollo cost less than 5 cents per U.S. citizen per day.

Yet Congress bleated about the cost. Whuh?

Sorry, this is a pet gripe of mine; they never should have stopped. We should have a permanent base there by now.

The entire Apollo programme cost $25.4 Billion, which is somthing like $180 billion in todays money, about the same as HS2 is going to cost the UK.