Michael Collins Returns for Splashdown
Michael Collins’ presence in real life is just as charming and witty as it is in his writing—if you haven’t read the hilarious Q&A Collins did with himself a decade ago for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 (and recently updated for the 50th), it’ll give you some insight on why Collins is one of NASA’s most beloved figures.
Collins joined employees in the Teague Auditorium at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on July 24, 50 years after splashing down from the Apollo 11 mission. He spoke about his experience during Apollo in a discussion of NASA’s past and future with Center Director Mark Geyer and Astronaut Anne McClain, who recently returned from Expeditions 58/59 on the International Space Station. Collins and McClain swapped space stories in front of the enthralled audience that never missed an opportunity to laugh or applaud.
The first memory Collins recounted stressed he was far from lonely orbiting the Moon by himself while Neil and Buzz walked its surface—he had 30 white mice keeping him company. Living with mice was an experience Collins later reflected on while stuck in quarantine back on Earth and ironically reading John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men. “The mice are more important than the men,” Collins said jokingly, as it was the mice’s survival that would indicate whether the crew should be concerned about dangerous pathogens that might have come home with them.
On a more serious note, Collins also discussed the risks and pressures the Apollo crew felt during the mission. “We felt the world’s weight on our shoulders,” he said. “We didn’t fool around. It was all business with us.” Collins said he primarily remembers not having time to relax and enjoy the view on board for long, but in the moments when he did look out his window at the Earth, he realized how delicate it was. “It had an air of fragility, like something that is easily broken,” he said. “It was an amazing spectacle—the blue ocean, white clouds and smears of rust that we call continents.”
The pressure the Apollo crew felt doesn’t seem to have lessened by much. McClain said her thoughts on her way up to space, like every other astronaut’s, was “don’t screw this up.” Of course, the missions today aren’t quite as risky with updated technology, but the job still carries incredible responsibility.
The moment of the mission that really had Collins sweating in his space suit wasn’t the landing but the return home. “It wasn’t a piece of cake or anything, but I was pretty sure the landing would be OK,” he said. There were 18 scenarios the team had drawn out for landing, each one requiring the crew to respond differently. “The landing was a terrible experience for me personally,” he said. “The world is upside down; there’s 100 percent humidity, and it’s 99 degrees.” And on top of that, the crew didn’t know if they would stick the landing. Today, that isn’t as much of a concern, and McClain said she actually enjoyed the landing, equating it to a roller coaster ride. Her difficulty came more with reintegrating back into society on Earth after being gone for so long.
Even after the rough landings, our astronauts, past and present, remind us the daring missions we are capable of accomplishing after returning home safely—a perfect way to celebrate today, the anniversary of the Apollo 11 splashdown. Soon, we’ll be off to the Moon again, and our explorers reminded us of why: “Who would we be as a society if we stopped exploring?” McClain said. “And would that be somewhere we would want to live?”
JSC employees can watch a recording of the panel on Imagery Online, CLICK HERE.
