Michael Collins – one of the three crew members of the first manned mission to the Moon, Apollo 11 in 1969 – has died aged 90.
He died on Wednesday after “a valiant battle with cancer. He spent his final days peacefully, with his family by his side,” they said.
Collins was part of the three-man Apollo 11 crew that effectively ended the space race between the United States and Russia and fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to reach the moon by the end of the 1960s.
He stayed in lunar orbit as his colleagues Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon.
Aldrin, 91, is now the only surviving member of the mission.
In a statement, the Collins family said that “Mike always faced the challenges of life with grace and humility, and faced this, his final challenge, the same way”.
“We will miss him terribly. Yet we also know how lucky Mike felt to have lived the life he did.
“We will honour his wish for us to celebrate, not mourn, that life.”
In a statement, acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk said: “Whether his work was behind the scenes or on full view, his legacy will always be as one of the leaders who took America’s first steps into the cosmos.”
Collins was part of the three-man Apollo 11 crew that effectively ended the space race between the United States and Russia and fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to reach the moon by the end of the 1960s.
He was alone for nearly 28 hours before Armstrong and Aldrin finished their tasks on the moon’s surface and lifted off in the lunar lander. He was responsible for re-docking the two spacecraft before the men could begin heading back to Earth. Had something gone wrong and Aldrin and Armstrong been stuck on the moon’s surface — a real fear — Collins would have returned to Earth alone.
On 16 July 2019, Collins visited Florida’s Kennedy Space Center – the site where the mission had set off exactly 50 years earlier. Speaking at launchpad 39A – where the crew’s rocket began the historic mission – he described how he felt during take-off.
“The shockwave from the rocket power hits you,” Collins told Nasa TV. “Your whole body is shaking. This gives you an entirely… different concept of what power really means.”
“You’re suspended in the cockpit… as you lift off,” he continued. “From then on it’s a quieter, more rational, silent ride all the way to the Moon.
“We crew felt the weight of the world on our shoulders, we knew that everyone would be looking at us, friend or foe.”
Though he was frequently asked if he regretted not landing on the moon, that was never an option for Collins, at least not on Apollo 11.
“I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have,” he wrote in his 1974 autobiography, ‘Carrying the Fire.’
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