Michael Collins has been asked the same question over and over for decades. Hadn’t he been terribly lonely when he landed on the moon? Because Collins turned on 20. July 1963 in the command capsule “Columbia” loops around the moon and was in the dead zone on the back of the celestial body when his colleagues Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down with the lander “Eagle” on the surface of the satellite. Around half a billion viewers on earth cheered the moon landing in front of their televisions. Collins, who on Saturday (31. October) 90 years old, was right in the middle – and but all alone.

At the 16. July 1963 started Apollo 10 on a Saturn V rocket – and on 20. July, the lunar module Eagle landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. At the 21. In July, Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon. In the coming days, a focus on heise online will pay tribute to this milestone in space travel under various aspects.

Nixon forgot to mention him He was not lonely anyway, stresses Collins again and again when he is asked the question again. “I felt part of what was going on on the moon. I know I would be a liar or a fool if I said I had the best of the three seats on Apollo 11 but I can honestly say that I am happy with that that I had. The venture was designed for three men and I see myself as just as necessary as the other two. ” In addition, he had the “Columbia” only to himself for a while. “I was the emperor, the captain and it was pretty comfortable. I even had warm coffee.”

Michael Collins in his NASA -Work gap.

(Image: NASA)

The then US President Richard Nixon forgot to mention Collins when he switched from the White House to the Moon – and so Collins went down in history as “the forgotten astronaut”. He had three years before the Apollo 11 – Mission already participated in another important space enterprise – and not only as a chauffeur. Collins was the pilot of the Gemini 10 – Mission, the first in which the spaceship docked onto two satellites one after the other. He also became the first person to move from one missile to another in space, and never before had humans been further away from Earth.

Later active in politics and business Collins 1930 was born in Italy as the son of a US Military attachés. His high school graduation in the USA was followed by admission to the West Point military academy and cadre forge, where he trained as a fighter pilot and test pilot. 1930 Collins made it into NASA’s astronaut selection.

Only one year after his flight to the moon, however, he left the space agency again and became Ministerial Director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 1969 he took over the post of director of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. 1980 he went into business and later started his own company. In addition, Collins, who spent more than eleven days in space, wrote numerous books about his travels in space. The father of three has received numerous awards, including a moon crater and a dwarf planet named after him.

Apollo moon landing 11 (11 Photos) Apollo 11. Image: Project Apollo Archive / Nasa

Heroes: “Astronauts don’t belong” In old age, Collins retired. He had become “intolerable”, he once said in one of his now rare interviews. He spends his time “running, biking, swimming, fishing, painting, cooking, reading, worrying about market values ​​and finding a good bottle of Cabernet for less than ten dollars.” He never saw himself as a hero. “There are heroes who should be celebrated, but astronauts are not one of them. We work hard and did our job almost perfectly, but that’s what we were hired for.” But he was lucky in life – and was happy too. “Write« Happy »on my tombstone.”

The moon was never the favorite celestial body of moon chauffeur Collins, but Mars. He hoped that one day people could land on it. “The moon is actually not a particularly interesting place for a celestial body, but Mars is.”

(tiw)