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4.45 AVERAGE
4.45 AVERAGE
You probably already know, but MC was the astronaut who stayed on the Lunar Module while Armstrong and Aldrin did their Eagle thing.
At the start of this book, Collins explains that, for better or for worse, he won't be using a ghost writer, and I would say it's by far for the better.
I've seen other reviews from readers who were impatient at the level of detail the author went into when describing the technicalities of what they had to do. For me, this made it immediate, real and terrifying.
Imagine travelling half way to the moon and the only way you can tell the flight computer where it is, is by selecting a star and using a hand-held sextant to measure the angle between that heavenly body and the edge of the earth. Utter lunacy. Excuse the pun.
Collins is a true wordsmith; clearly an intellectual giant of a man, despite his modest outlook. His writing was vivid, thoughtful and immediate, and it made me feel quite honoured, just to be able to share the experience, if only through the pages of a book.
“If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.
“My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone.
"If they fail to rise from the surface, or crash back into it, I am not going to commit suicide; I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life and I know it.”
At the start of this book, Collins explains that, for better or for worse, he won't be using a ghost writer, and I would say it's by far for the better.
I've seen other reviews from readers who were impatient at the level of detail the author went into when describing the technicalities of what they had to do. For me, this made it immediate, real and terrifying.
Imagine travelling half way to the moon and the only way you can tell the flight computer where it is, is by selecting a star and using a hand-held sextant to measure the angle between that heavenly body and the edge of the earth. Utter lunacy. Excuse the pun.
Collins is a true wordsmith; clearly an intellectual giant of a man, despite his modest outlook. His writing was vivid, thoughtful and immediate, and it made me feel quite honoured, just to be able to share the experience, if only through the pages of a book.
“If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.
“My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone.
"If they fail to rise from the surface, or crash back into it, I am not going to commit suicide; I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life and I know it.”
Collins is famous for being the first man NOT to walk on the moon. Part of a three-man crew on Apollo 11, his job was to stay behind in the spacecraft, orbiting the moon while Neil and Buzz got all the good lines.
This was SO GOOD. I’ve read a decent amount on different missions, test pilots, and astronauts, but this was the most comprehensive soup-to-nuts coverage of the space race. While the writing isn’t as dramatic as The Right Stuff, it’s certainly more definitive. Luckily, what could have been a history textbook was instead a heartfelt story of one man. One humble, funny, but still ballsy test pilot who was THERE for all the firsts. The accidents, the deaths, the training, the checklists (Note the Note, fellow missile warriors…there’s a 20-step checklist to pee in space. And Collins lists each step.) He’s not above a little gossip, either. It’s just an all-around great story.
This was SO GOOD. I’ve read a decent amount on different missions, test pilots, and astronauts, but this was the most comprehensive soup-to-nuts coverage of the space race. While the writing isn’t as dramatic as The Right Stuff, it’s certainly more definitive. Luckily, what could have been a history textbook was instead a heartfelt story of one man. One humble, funny, but still ballsy test pilot who was THERE for all the firsts. The accidents, the deaths, the training, the checklists (Note the Note, fellow missile warriors…there’s a 20-step checklist to pee in space. And Collins lists each step.) He’s not above a little gossip, either. It’s just an all-around great story.
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Absolutely incredible. The best space-mission book Ive read thus far. Human, real, beautiful.
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3725966.html
A few years back I found a list of the best books about spaceflight by astronauts, and this was firmly at the top of the list. It took me a while to actually get around to reading it, but it really is very very good. Collins, who died aged 90 just a few weeks ago, was of course the Command Module Pilot who remained orbiting the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on it, and because he was on the far side at the time he was probably the only person in the space programme who did not hear Armstrong's first steps live, even though he was closer to the scene than anyone else. But in a sense that's not the point; the point of the book is how Collins, a modest chap who seems aware of his own deficiencies, became part of one of the most audacious technological projects in history.
It's really interesting to see learn how deeply the astronauts themselves were involved in crucial design decisions. Every crew was assigned their modules from quite an early stage, so when they took them into space they would not only be familiar with them, they would actually be using equipment that they themselves had helped to build. And Collins was horribly aware of what could go wrong; orbiting the Moon, he is deeply conscious that he might be going home alone, leaving two colleagues dead or dying on an alien surface. But they make it back.
"The first one through is Buzz, with a big smile on his face. I grab his head, a hand on each temple, and am about to give him a smooch on the forehead, as a parent might greet an errant child; but then, embarrassed, I think better of it and grab his hand, and then Neil’s."
Collins also had some other interesting contributions apart from the flight itself. It was he who actually designed the mission insignia for Apollo 11, the eagle, the olive branch, and the unusual absence of the names of the astronauts, to emphasise the "for all mankind" aspect. He decided at quite an early stage that the firs moon landing would be his last (and second) space flight, went on to do a not terribly happy term at the State Department, and then had a very large hand in setting up the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
The book is also really really funny in places. His description of the Air Force survival manual had me crying with laughter.
"The manual opens on a cheery note: “Anything that creeps, crawls, swims, or flies is a possible source of food.” Then it gets a bit too specific for my taste. “People eat grasshoppers, hairless caterpillars, wood-boring beetle larvae and pupae, ant eggs, and termites.” Not me, babe! Oh yeah? Read on. “You have probably eaten insects as contaminants in flour, corn meal, rice, beans, fruits, and greens of your daily food, and in stores in general.” No wonder the supermarket has been less crowded lately."
And on the best fitness regime for an astronaut:
"Under these circumstances, how should one prepare his body for space flight? Theories within the astronaut group ran the gamut. Bon vivant Wally Schirra allowed as how the best way to prepare for a restful experience was to rest. Mathematician Neil Armstrong suggested that a person was given only a finite number of heartbeats in this life, and he was not going to hasten his demise by asking his heart to speed up during exercise. In the opposite corner were the jocks, chief among them Ed White, who might begin a typical day by joyfully running three miles and end it with half a dozen games of squash and handball. In between, inconspicuous under the dome of the bell-shaped curve, cowered the majority."
That "cowered" is magnificent, isn't it!
"It was true that as July 18 [his first launch in 1966] drew closer, my thoughts were more and more preoccupied with the flight, but naturally my placid, even temper prevailed, and I recall thinking how grand it was to be able to share my upcoming experience with my family with such composure, equanimity, and good humor. Harking back to this same period, Pat [his wife] says I resented interruptions and was preoccupied, distracted, and totally irritable! God bless her, she waited a couple of years to tell me this[.]"
His wife and family were clearly a key element of keeping him emotionally and psychologically grounded, and it's maybe worth noting that he was the only one of the Apollo 11 crew whose marriage survived the Moon. (There is another hilarious passage when, visiting France, he and Pat are compelled to re-enact their own wedding ceremony in the village where they had originally got hitched several years before.)
Anyway, this was a great read, even if you don't care about spaceflight as much as I do. You can get it here.
A few years back I found a list of the best books about spaceflight by astronauts, and this was firmly at the top of the list. It took me a while to actually get around to reading it, but it really is very very good. Collins, who died aged 90 just a few weeks ago, was of course the Command Module Pilot who remained orbiting the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on it, and because he was on the far side at the time he was probably the only person in the space programme who did not hear Armstrong's first steps live, even though he was closer to the scene than anyone else. But in a sense that's not the point; the point of the book is how Collins, a modest chap who seems aware of his own deficiencies, became part of one of the most audacious technological projects in history.
It's really interesting to see learn how deeply the astronauts themselves were involved in crucial design decisions. Every crew was assigned their modules from quite an early stage, so when they took them into space they would not only be familiar with them, they would actually be using equipment that they themselves had helped to build. And Collins was horribly aware of what could go wrong; orbiting the Moon, he is deeply conscious that he might be going home alone, leaving two colleagues dead or dying on an alien surface. But they make it back.
"The first one through is Buzz, with a big smile on his face. I grab his head, a hand on each temple, and am about to give him a smooch on the forehead, as a parent might greet an errant child; but then, embarrassed, I think better of it and grab his hand, and then Neil’s."
Collins also had some other interesting contributions apart from the flight itself. It was he who actually designed the mission insignia for Apollo 11, the eagle, the olive branch, and the unusual absence of the names of the astronauts, to emphasise the "for all mankind" aspect. He decided at quite an early stage that the firs moon landing would be his last (and second) space flight, went on to do a not terribly happy term at the State Department, and then had a very large hand in setting up the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
The book is also really really funny in places. His description of the Air Force survival manual had me crying with laughter.
"The manual opens on a cheery note: “Anything that creeps, crawls, swims, or flies is a possible source of food.” Then it gets a bit too specific for my taste. “People eat grasshoppers, hairless caterpillars, wood-boring beetle larvae and pupae, ant eggs, and termites.” Not me, babe! Oh yeah? Read on. “You have probably eaten insects as contaminants in flour, corn meal, rice, beans, fruits, and greens of your daily food, and in stores in general.” No wonder the supermarket has been less crowded lately."
And on the best fitness regime for an astronaut:
"Under these circumstances, how should one prepare his body for space flight? Theories within the astronaut group ran the gamut. Bon vivant Wally Schirra allowed as how the best way to prepare for a restful experience was to rest. Mathematician Neil Armstrong suggested that a person was given only a finite number of heartbeats in this life, and he was not going to hasten his demise by asking his heart to speed up during exercise. In the opposite corner were the jocks, chief among them Ed White, who might begin a typical day by joyfully running three miles and end it with half a dozen games of squash and handball. In between, inconspicuous under the dome of the bell-shaped curve, cowered the majority."
That "cowered" is magnificent, isn't it!
"It was true that as July 18 [his first launch in 1966] drew closer, my thoughts were more and more preoccupied with the flight, but naturally my placid, even temper prevailed, and I recall thinking how grand it was to be able to share my upcoming experience with my family with such composure, equanimity, and good humor. Harking back to this same period, Pat [his wife] says I resented interruptions and was preoccupied, distracted, and totally irritable! God bless her, she waited a couple of years to tell me this[.]"
His wife and family were clearly a key element of keeping him emotionally and psychologically grounded, and it's maybe worth noting that he was the only one of the Apollo 11 crew whose marriage survived the Moon. (There is another hilarious passage when, visiting France, he and Pat are compelled to re-enact their own wedding ceremony in the village where they had originally got hitched several years before.)
Anyway, this was a great read, even if you don't care about spaceflight as much as I do. You can get it here.
If you ever wanted to know what it was like to be an astronaut, this is the book to read. Thorough, well-written, fascinating. Spots of humor through out.
Fantastic book!
Written in Michael Collins' own voice (he decided against a ghost writer), the book feels quite personal. Along with vivid descriptions of space travel, he also describes the emotions of the journey. Not just to the moon, but the journey leading up to it, and the journey afterward.
Written in Michael Collins' own voice (he decided against a ghost writer), the book feels quite personal. Along with vivid descriptions of space travel, he also describes the emotions of the journey. Not just to the moon, but the journey leading up to it, and the journey afterward.