Carrying the Fire

 

I have just finished reading Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins. Collins, one of the Apollo 11 Astronauts, died a few weeks ago. Hearing the commentators talk about his death, they also mentioned his book and I was intrigued. I was a child of the 1960’s and astronauts and all things space, were my bread and butter. When I was about 8 or 9, I could have named most of the astronauts who had flown. I watched the moon walk on TV with my family. So did everyone who had access to a TV. It was an activity that almost everyone around the world was doing at the same time. I am not sure there has ever been an event watched by so many people simultaneously. The irony is that the man who helped Armstrong and Aldrin get to the moon, could not watch it himself. He had no TV monitor and even if he had, there would have been no way to transmit it to him when he was going around the far side of the Moon.

Michael Collins was a good writer. He could have had a cowriter or a ghostwriter, but he chose to do it himself. I am glad he did. There is something about getting the story straight from the horse’s mouth and he had a fair amount of talent with a pen. Collins considered himself lucky, and you can see why. Lots of people wanted to be astronauts. Very few succeeded. It took him three tries before he finally got in.  He said he went through twenty lifetimes of things that could have killed him. In the 1950’s he ejected from a fighter jet before it blew up. The Gemini and Apollo crafts he was on were at the cutting edge of technology, not exactly tried and true. But then, he was used to that, being a test pilot. There were also things that no one could ever get used to: six of his astronaut companions died during the time he was in the program.

I remember watching the Apollo broadcasts on TV, but memories dim after 50 years. I don’t remember the details. I remember watching, but I don’t remember what I saw. I watched the splashdown and the retrieval and taking the three off to a quarantine trailer on the USS Hornet. Collins mentioned that as soon as they were safely in the trailer, President Nixon spoke to them from the deck in front of them. I must have seen that, but I don’t remember it. Interestingly, what I do remember is hearing how they were going to have to be in quarantine for 21 days to make sure they hadn’t brought back any “moon bugs.” I was all of about 10 years old and I remember how ridiculous I thought that was. Who in their right mind would think that there was some kind of microbe on the airless moon that could infect the crew and eventually us? We probably have H.G. Wells to thank for that one. In War of the Worlds, Wells vividly describes the ultimate death and defeat of the Martians, who had become infected with our microbes against which they had no defenses. But then, the Martians had come to a living world, not a barren rock that was subject to the vacuum of space. My ten-year-old self thought it was idiotic, and though I was proven right, with the passage of time I can see the wisdom of caution.

It was nice to get a feel for what it was like to be an astronaut in the early 1960’s. Everyone knew that the Apollo spacecraft was the one that would go to the moon. But the Apollo was years away and until it could be ready, there were still a lot of things that needed to be learned about spaceflight using off-the-shelf missiles: the Redstone and Atlas rockets powered project Mercury, and the Titan II rockets powered Gemini. Before we could go to the moon, we had to learn how to rendezvous and dock. We had to prove that EVAs (spacewalks) were feasible, and we had to learn how the human body reacted to weightlessness for prolonged periods of time. They tested equipment, concepts, and math. They got experience learning what that alien environment, space, was like. Collins and John Young had a very complicated mission on Gemini 10 that included spacewalks, rendezvous, and docking. Each member of the astronaut corps was given an assignment in the development of a particular segment of the project. In Michael Collins case, it was space suit design. He said it was not the most exciting assignment, but it was pretty important.

Astronauts were also expected to do public relations, to fly to this ceremony or that, to speak to school kids and politicians. It was not an easy life for a family. Besides all the travel, the long hours, all the time away from home, the family of an astronaut had to wait while their loved one was going to space, not knowing if they would come back. This was why Michael Collins decided that Apollo 11 would be his last spaceflight. After Apollo, he worked for the State Department and then ran the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. He finished his military career as a major general in the Air Force Reserves. In the book he commented that any death, when it comes, seems premature, but he felt like he had grabbed more than his share of life. He died April 28^th this year at age 90. From an outsider’s perspective, I would have to say he certainly appeared to have a life well-lived. Godspeed, General Collins.

Star Liner