The Apollo 14 landing site imaged by LRO. Credit: NASA
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As anticipated, NASA released images of the Apollo landing sites taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The pictures show the Apollo missions’ lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon’s surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules’ locations evident. Also visible are the tracks left where the astronauts walked repeatedly in a “high traffic zone” and perhaps by the Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET) wheelbarrow-like carrier used on Apollo 14. Wow.
As a journalist, I (most of the time) try to remain objective and calm. But there’s only one response to these images: W00T!
Apollo 11 landing site as imaged by LRO. Credit: NASA
These first images were taken between July 11 and 15, and the spacecraft is not yet in its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution. Apollo 15 site by LRO. Credit: NASA
These images are the first glimpses from LRO,” said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington. “Things are only going to get better.”
The Japanese Kaguya spacecraft previously took images of some of the Apollo landing sites, but not at a high enough resolution to show any of the details of the lander or any other details. But here on these images, the hardware is visible. “It’s great to see the hardware on the surface, waiting for us to return,” said Mark Robinson, principal investigator for LRO.
Robinson said the LROC team anxiously awaited each image. “We were very interested in getting our first peek at the lunar module descent stages just for the thrill — and to see how well the cameras had come into focus. Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus.”
Apollo 16 by LRO. Credit: NASA
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.
The spacecraft’s current elliptical orbit resulted in image resolutions that were slightly different for each site but were all around four feet per pixel. Because the deck of the descent stage is about 12 feet in diameter, the Apollo relics themselves fill an area of about nine pixels. However, because the sun was low to the horizon when the images were made, even subtle variations in topography create long shadows. Standing slightly more than ten feet above the surface, each Apollo descent stage creates a distinct shadow that fills roughly 20 pixels. Apollo 17 LRO. Credit: NASA
The image of the Apollo 14 landing site had a particularly desirable lighting condition that allowed visibility of additional details. The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package, a set of scientific instruments placed by the astronauts at the landing site, is discernable, as are the faint trails between the module and instrument package left by the astronauts’ footprints. Zoomed in Apollo 14 image by LRO. Credit: NASA
Artist concept of Chandrayaan-1 orbiting the moon. Credit: ISRO
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The Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft, India’s moon orbiting satellite was almost lost earlier this year, Indian Space Research Organization revealed, as the star tracking system overheated and malfunctioned. The system helps determine and maintain the spacecraft’s orientation. Engineers were able to patch in the gyroscopes and another instrument to help maneuver the spacecraft, but they are not sure how long this jury-rigged system will work. At this point, determining the spacecraft’s future might be difficult, and differing statements from various officials reflect that.
“We are not sure how long we will be able to sustain it. The life of Chandrayaan-I designed for two years may be reduced,” said ISRO spokesman S. Satish.
ISRO chief Madhavan Nair said the star tracking system cannot be recovered, but he dismissed suggestions that the sensor’s failure might reduce the life span of the spacecraft.
“The life (of the spacecraft) is not dependent on this instrument. This instrument is used only for orientation of the spacecraft,” he said. “The sensor cannot be recovered at this stage and we hope that the remaining part of this mission will be completed.”
Chandrayaan-1 launched in October 2008 and suffered from overheating shortly after it began operations in lunar orbit in November, but the ISRO was able to change the spacecraft’s orientation and cut down on the amount of time the instruments were used to compensate.
In May 2009, however, officials unexpectedly raised the orbit of the spacecraft. At that time officials said they had completed mission objectives from 100 km above the moon and raised the height of the spacecraft to 200 km to enable imaging lunar surface with a wider swath. But reports say that May is when the star tracker system malfunctioned, as well.
Nair said the star sensor is suspected to have failed because of “excessive radiation” from the Sun. He said gyroscopes are not susceptible for the kind of radiation that the sensor was subjected to. “So, we hope it will survive the remaining mission duration”.
He added more than 90 percent of the two-year mission’s objectives have already been achieved.
ISRO Scientists hope the Chandrayaan project will boost India’s capacity to build more efficient rockets and satellites, especially through miniaturization, and open research avenues for young Indian scientists. India plans to follow the Chandrayaan, which means “moon craft” in Sanskrit, by landing a rover on the moon in 2011.
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s a picturesque weekend to get up early as the Moon heads for the Pleiades and on towards a close encounter with Venus. With plenty of dark skies to go around and the random meteor rate a little higher than usual, why not spend some time with the constellation of Lupus? No telescope or binoculars? No problem. There’s also plenty of things to do over the next few days that only requires just your eyes and a little knowledge of the skies. I’ll see you in the backyard…
Friday, July 17, 2009 – This date marks the 1904 passing of Isaac Roberts, an English astronomer who specialized in photographing nebulae. Since many deep sky objects are far too faint to be seen with the human eye, photography soon became a great way of studying them, but as the Earth moved, long exposure photography became problematic as the image also moved and blurred. Roberts’ developed a telescope/camera combination which would track, allowing for a long exposure times and perfected images. As an ironic twist, this is also the date on which a star was first photographed at Harvard Observatory!
Tonight let’s have a look at a real little power punch globular cluster located in northern Lupus— NGC 5824. Although it’s not an easy star hop, you’ll find it about 7 degrees southwest of Theta Librae,
and exactly the same distance south of Sigma Librae (RA 15 03 58 Dec –33 04 04). Look for a 5th magnitude star in the finderscope to guide you to its position southeast.
As a Class I globular cluster, you won’t find any others that are more concentrated than this. Holding a rough magnitude of 9, this little beauty has a deeply concentrated core region that is simply unresolvable. Discovered by E.E. Barnard in 1884, it enjoys its life in the outer fringes of its galactic halo about 104 light-years away from Earth and contains many recently discovered variable stars. Oddly enough, this metal-poor globular may have been formed by a merger. Research on GC 5824’s stellar population leads us to believe that two less dense and differently aged globulars may have approached one another at a low velocity and combined to form this ultra-compact structure. Be sure to mark your observing notes on this one! It also belongs to the Bennett catalog and is part of many globular cluster lists.
Saturday, July 18, 2009 – Celestial scenery alert! Get up before dawn to witness the Moon graze by the Pleiades. For some observers, the pair will be separated by around half a degree; it will be an occultation event for others. Still not enough? Then be sure to look for the twin red pair of Mars and Aldebaran spaced equidistant to the Moon’s south!
Tonight let’s begin with the 1689 birth of Samuel Molyneux. This British astronomer and his assistant were the first to measure the aberration of starlight. What star did they choose? Alpha Draconis, which oscillated with an excursion of 39’’ from its lowest declination in May. Why choose a single star during an early dark evening? Because Alpha Draconis—Thuban—is far from bright. At magnitude 3.65, Thuban’s ‘‘alpha’’ designation must have come from a time when it, not Polaris, was the northern celestial pole star. If you’re aware that the two outer stars of the ‘‘dipper’’ point to Polaris, then use the two inner stars to point to Thuban (RA 14 04 23 Dec +64 22 33). This 300-light-year distant white giant star is no longer main sequence, a rare binary type.
Now head to binary Eta Lupi, a fine double star resolvable with binoculars. You’ll find it by staring at Antares and heading due south two binocular fields to center on bright H and N Scorpii—then one binocular field southwest. Now hop 5 degrees southeast (RA 16 25 18 Dec – 40 39 00) to encounter the fine open cluster NGC 6124. Discovered by Lacaille, and known as object I.8, this 5th magnitude open cluster is also Dunlop 514, Melotte 145, and Collinder 301. Situated about 19 light years away, it shows a fine, round, faint spray of stars to binoculars and is resolved into about 100 stellar members to larger telescopes. Although NGC 6124 is low for northern observers, it’s worth the wait to try at culmination. Be sure to mark your notes because this delightful galactic cluster is also a Caldwell object and counts for a southern skies binocular award.
Sunday, July 19, 2009 – Want a picturesque sight before dawn? Then look for the close pairing of Venus and the Moon. Which has the greater crescent? This probably would have interested Edward Charles Pickering, who was born on this date in 1864. Pickering was the director of Harvard College Observatory for 42 years and published the first all-sky photographic map in 1902. While at Harvard, he recruited many women to work for him, including Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and Antonia Maury. These women were called “Pickering’s Harem” by the scientific community – but don’t you believe any crap for one instant. In those days, it was incredibly difficult for a woman to have her academic work recognized and Edward Pickering was one of the very few men open-minded enough to realize just what these women astronomers could achieve and allow them the chance to do it!
Tonight for unaided observers, let’s begin by identifying Zeta Ophiuchi, the centermost in a line of stars marking the edge of the constellation of Ophiuchus, about a handspan north of Antares. As a magnificent 3rd magnitude blue-white Class O, this hydrogen-fusing dwarf is eight times larger than our own Sun. Hanging out some 460 light-years away, it is dulled by the interstellar dust of the Milky Way and would shine two full magnitudes brighter if it were not obscured. Zeta is a ‘‘runaway star’’—a product of a one-time supernova event of a double-star system. Now roughly halfway through its 8 million-year life span, the same fate awaits this star! Nowpoint binoculars or small scopes about three finger-widths south to have a look at Phi Ophiuchi. This is a spectroscopic double star, but it has several delightful visual companions!
Almost in between these two bright stars is our telescopic target for tonight—M107. Discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1782, and added to the catalog in 1947, it’s probably one of the last of the Messier objects to be discovered and wasn’t resolved into individual stars until studied by Herschel in 1793.
M107 isn’t the most impressive of globulars, but this Class X is notable as a faint, diffuse area with a core region in binoculars and is surprisingly bright in a small telescope. It’s a curious cluster, for some believe it contains dark, dust-obscured areas, which make it unusual. Located around 21,000 lightyears away, this little beauty contains around 25 known variable stars. Visually, the cluster begins to resolve around the edges to mid-aperture, and the structure is rather loose. If sky conditions permit, the resolution of individual chains at the globular’s edges makes this globular well worth a visit!
This week’s awesome images are (in order of appearance): Isaac Roberts (historical image), NGC 5824, Alpha Draconis, NGC 6124 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech), Edward Pickering (historical image) and M107 (credit—Palomar Observatory, courtesy of Caltech). We thank you so much!
The storm clouds stayed far enough away so that space shuttle Endeavour and her STS-127 crew finally launched on July 15 on its sixth attempt. The video here shows spectacular views, from the camera mounted on the shuttle’s external tank, showing the launchpad dropping away below, and then the separation of the shuttle’s twin boosters two minutes and five seconds into the flight. Watching the video here, multiple pieces of foam insulation can be seen falling away from the external tank during the early moments of flight. The crew is working today on heat shield inspections to see if any significant damage occurred from any foam strikes on the belly of the orbiter. Continue reading “Watch the STS-127 Launch Video in HD”
Apollo 11 landing site on Tranquility Base. Credit: NASA
The Apollo 11 40th anniversary is coming at us fast and furious! With restored images and video, mission audio, interviews, and special features, who can keep track of it all? Well, we’re going to try. We’ll post here all the links we can find that has anything to do with the anniversary. If you find something of interest elsewhere you think we should add, email it to Nancy or post it in the comments, and we’ll add it. This will be Apollo 11 anniversary HQ!
Audio, Video, etc:
Listen to Apollo 11 mission audio “live” to the minute as it happened 40 years ago (July 16-24) or listen later at any time: We Choose the Moon
Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin examine film taken of their mission. Credit: NASA
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The engineers who helped beam images of the lunar surface to Earth in 1969 are doing a little hand-wringing these days – because original film of the historic event got recycled at NASA rather than preserved.
Still, the agency has teamed up with a Hollywood restoration team to collect and improve on backup copies of the Apollo 11 feat. The clearer, digitized versions will be available in a few months.
Dick Nafzger, a NASA engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center who oversaw television production of Apollo 11, said the initial tape was stored in the national archives until the Apollo program no longer needed the data it contained.
Sometime after that, NASA thinks, the tapes were pulled from their boxes, erased and used to record data for subsequent missions.
It wasn’t until years later that Nafzger and others understood the historical value of the tapes — and the gravity of their loss.
“When I was a 28-year-old engineer, maybe I didn’t understand that. But I certainly do now,” said Nafzger, who spoke at a NASA press conference on Thursday. He hastened to add that he wasn’t in the loop when the tapes were being erased; he and others discovered the tapes’ fate only later, when they became interested in improving the notoriously grainy footage.
Because backup tapes of the mission weren’t so readily discarded after the celebrated lunar landing on July 20, 1969, the engineer-turned-historian has been given another chance.
Nafzger was joined at the press conference by Stan Lebar, the now-retired Westinghouse electric program manager who spearheaded the lunar camera, and Mike Inchalik, president of Lowry Digital in Burbank, California. Together, the men have managed to secure tapes from Sydney, Australia and the archives at CBS, where the live footage was streamed from Houston on that monumental day.
They’re bringing the best of digital technology to bear on what was at the time the cutting edge of videography, even though it was made harder on the eyes of television audiences by conversion to broadcast form. For restoration purposes, the original footage that’s been recovered is actually quite useful, Inchalik said.
“Every frame in that sequence has some information that it shares with others … if you can extract what doesn’t belong, you can make those pictures clearer,” he said.
The team showed four short clips from the $230,000 restoration project at the press conference — including moments where both Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on the lunar surface. The “after” images are indeed clearer, with more accurate lightning and sharper contrast.
Inchalik said his company is sensitive to preserving the historical integrity of the footage, and aware that any missteps could fuel conspiracy theories that the lunar landing was faked.
“There are elements in the original where we’re not touching or making corrections we would normally make,” he said. “There’s some value in the fact that we’re not a special effects house; we’re a restoration house.”
Nafzger was careful to point out that no new footage will be issued of the landing; all the restored tape comes from video that has already been released. The final product is expected in September.
The archipelago of Malta has coordinated a global campaign to take images of sections of the Moon’s surface as seen from 40 countries, and combine them in this commemorative, symbolic whole called the “Moon for All Mankind.”
The composite was released today, which marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. Monday will be the anniversary of the landing.
Update: The Malta IYA Committee wrote to share this link with UT readers — a really fascinating animation they created. Check it out!
Sea of Tranquility on the moon, credit Mark Sibole
On the composite, the United States was assigned the region of the Sea of Tranquility, the location of the Apollo 11 landing on July 20, 1969. The U.S. image was provided by amateur astronomer Mark Sibole of Fife Lake, Michigan, the builder and operator of Mark’s Tin Shed Observatory (MTSO). The image was captured on June 12, 2009, using Meade LX200R 10-inch telescope and a DSI PRO III imager. The final composition is a stack of 100 images at 0.14 seconds autostacked in Envisage.
“I’ve done many lunar images, but this is the first time that I set out to zero in on one specific area,” Sibole said. “Everyone wants to ‘capture’ the Moon, and I’m pretty happy with the result.”
Besides Apollo 11, the image commemorates the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009), as well as the 50th anniversary of the first robotic lunar landing by the Russian Luna 2 probe. Other countries to have launched spacecraft to the Moon include Japan, Europe, China and India; these probes are also featured in the image.
Most of the images were taken during the May or June full moons of 2009 but some were older, and Italy’s was a four hundred year-old sketch by Galileo Galilei.
Malta is an archipelago of small islands in the Mediterranean with a population of just over 400,000 people. It has a rich history and is home to the oldest free-standing stone structures in the world. It is claimed that these temples, which are thousands of years old, were aligned to the solstice and so there has been a strong astronomical tradition in Malta for many centuries.
Source: IYA2009, via the American Astronomical Society (AAS) press wire. To find out more about Mark Sibole and his observatory on the Web, visit astronomy.qteaser.com.
In this new generation of everything high def – from computer screen to televisions – is it possible to create a high definition telescope? The answer is yes… And the designer is Celestron. As always, I keep my eyes and ears open when it comes to the latest in astronomy equipment. While I’ve seen a lot of things come and go over the years (including other Ritchey-Chretien and astrograph knock-offs), the Celestron EdgeHD is a design that I think really deserves a closer look…
First let’s start the story off where it deserves to be started… the basic Schmidt Cassegrain design. Some four decades ago, the SCT was cutting edge technology. Its predecessor the Cassegrain, used a primary concave mirror and a secondary hyperbolic convex mirror to focus the light back through the hole in the primary to the eyepiece or camera. The Schmidt design allowed for a corrector plate to be added to the optical path to help eliminate spherical aberrations – the increased refraction or reflection of the light rays when they strike near the mirror’s edge. This produced great flat-field images and long focal lengths in an extremely compact design – but it also introduced a very expensive telescope. One the average consumer couldn’t afford.
Enter Celestron…
In 1970 Celestron telescope designers and engineers announced a revolutionary method of producing Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes at a reasonable cost and in volume. This optical breakthrough was incorporated in the first Celestron C8. The popularity of the C8 Celestron telescope in the consumer marketplace led to the C5 Celestron telescope and then to larger versions, including an 11″ and 14″ telescope. The “orange tube” telescopes became an instant classic and many of them are still in use today… But the design could be a little bit better, couldn’t it? Yeah. It could be aplanatic.
Aplanatic telescopes can be designed with two aspheric mirrors, configured to correct spherical and coma aberrations – a design which minimizes astigmatism and can be optimized to have no vignetting across the field. What’s more, the aplantic design also allows for a significant reduction in scale sizes when it comes to astrophotography, making them extremely compatible with finely-pixilated modern imaging equipment, like CCD cameras. But that would also make it very expensive wouldn’t it? Yeah… It would. But still, that design could get a little bit better couldn’t it? Sure. It could be an astrograph!
In this case, the astrograph is a telescope designed for the sole purpose of astrophotography. Not so great if you want to use it visually… But just dandy if you’re interested in wide field surveys of the night sky. It’s a pure research grade telescope – designed to work in conjunction with a specific shaped photographic plate or CCD detector. With an astrograph you could work on things like astrometry, stellar classifications and, with time, even proper motion of nearby stars. An astrograph means the possibility of finding things like asteroids, meteors, comets, variable stars, nova, and even unknown planets. But an astrograph means you’re talking about a mighty expensive telescope, right? Right.
Enter Celestron…
Just like 40 years ago when Celestron revolutionized the affordability factor of the Schmidt-Cassegrain design (once also the domain of researchers only), they are about to revolutionize amateur astronomy once again by giving the world its very first high definition telescope – the Celestron EdgeHD.
Is Celestron making promises it can’t keep? Let’s take a look at the track record of some major telescope manufacturers.
It hasn’t been that long since Meade also introduced a similar design telescope known as the ACF, or Advanced Coma Free. It was a knock-off of the Ritchey-Chretien design, and supposedly free of third-order coma and spherical aberration, and heavily advertised as being as the same design as the Hubble Space Telescope. Well, we all know what happened right off the bat with the Hubble, don’t we? Darn right. One little wrong tweak in the optical design led to a major Hubble error and one wrong move in poorly executed RCT design will lead to fifth-order coma, severe large-angle astigmatism, and comparatively severe field curvature.
When companies compete with comparative design models for the consumer, they’re putting out a lot of advertising hype your way. But let’s cut to the chase. Two companies… Both produced a sky navigation product – one failed and one endured. Which one? Yeah. The Celestron SkyScout. You’re getting the picture. Let’s take our own IYA Live Telescope as another example. The Meade ETX lasted through 28 observations and I have a Celestron 114 that’s 22 years old and I can’t even begin to fathom how many times it’s been used. Try calling or writing the companies for customer service or questions… See which one answers you and which one doesn’t.
Will the Celestron EdgeHD telescope be all that? The image you see here was taken by Andre Paquette using Celestron EdgeHD Optics. I’ve examined it upside down, backwards, forwards and from edge to edge… and what I see are perfect stellar images. (Open the full-sized image and check it out yourself. You’ll be impressed!)
Celestron promises the light becomes more concentrated when focused precisely. This maximizes image brightness, improves resolution and limiting magnitude when compared to telescopes of equal aperture. I know for a fact that you can’t beat Celestron’s Starbright XLT coatings, because I’ve never had to recoat a Celestron mirror yet. I look at the modern ergonomic design and I don’t see “cool” the same way as others… I see a self contained unit that isn’t going to be dragging or snagging on things – one with cooling vents located on the rear cell allow hot air to be released from behind the primary mirror. I see a telescope that’s going to perform incredibly in both visual and photographic capabilities…
So where’s the bottom line? The cost. Don’t start selling your gold dental fillings or thinking about taking out a second mortgage on your home, because Celestron has done it again. Just like so many years ago when they made the SCT affordable to backyard astronomers, they are now putting cutting edge, research grade design telescopes into the realm of possible. The average price is only about 1/3 more for the optical tube assembly than a standard SCT and it gets even lower as the aperture goes up. If you need the complete telescope package with a mount and tripod? Sure. It’s expensive – but the high quality of the mount is what you’re paying for and it’s worth it. (Remember two little telescopes – one that lasted through 28 observations and one that’s still going strong after 22 years.) What kind of faith do I have in Celestron? The same faith I’ve always had. Every Celestron product I’ve purchased over the years is still functioning… and the same cannot be said of other “M”anufacturers.
Go on… Take a look at the Celestron EdgeHD for yourself! You’ll find much more information and illustrations at the Celestron EdgeHD Tour pages, and you can take a look at pricing, specifications, and other information through Celestron’s premier dealers such as OPT, telescopes.com, Scope City, High Point, Hands On Optics, Astronomics and Adorama.
Eagle Nebula, courtesy of the European Southern Observatory
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We’re still a few days out from the 40th anniversary of the touchdown of Apollo 11’s lunar lander, the Eagle. (The launch went off 40 years and just an hour or so ago.)
Presumably to hold us over, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released this stunning new image of the Eagle Nebula.
Located 7000 light-years away, towards the constellation of Serpens (the Snake), the Eagle Nebula is a dazzling stellar nursery, a region of gas and dust where young stars are currently being formed and where a cluster of massive, hot stars, NGC 6611, has just been born. The powerful light and strong winds from these massive new arrivals are shaping light-year long pillars, seen in the image partly silhouetted against the bright background of the nebula. The nebula itself has a shape vaguely reminiscent of an eagle, with the central pillars being the “talons.”
The star cluster was discovered by the Swiss astronomer Jean Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745–46. It was independently rediscovered about 20 years later by the French comet hunter Charles Messier, who included it as number 16 in his famous catalogue and remarked that the stars were surrounded by a faint glow. The Eagle Nebula achieved iconic status in 1995, when its central pillars were depicted in this stunning image obtained with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The newly released image, obtained with the Wide-Field Imager camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile, covers an area on the sky as large as the full Moon, and is more than 200 times more extensive than the iconic Hubble visible-light image. The whole region around the pillars can now be seen in exquisite detail.
The “Pillars of Creation” are in the middle of the image, with the cluster of young stars, NGC 6611, lying above and to the right. The “Spire” — another pillar captured by Hubble — is at the center left of the image.
Finger-like features protrude from the vast cloud wall of cold gas and dust, not unlike stalagmites rising from the floor of a cave. Inside the pillars, the gas is dense enough to collapse under its own weight, forming young stars. These light-year long columns of gas and dust are being simultaneously sculpted, illuminated and destroyed by the intense ultraviolet light from massive stars in NGC 6611, the adjacent young stellar cluster. Within a few million years — a mere blink of the universal eye — they will be gone forever.
Source: ESO. More videos there allow you to zoom in on the Eagle Nebula, pan across it, or cross-fade into several views — all while listening to music that is quite ethereal.
Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins. Credit: GeekoutNewYork
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Michael Collins has always been one of my favorite people (I even wrote a song about him). He’s funny, he’s humble, he’s passionate, he’s a great writer, and oh yeah — he’s an astronaut. Collins was the command module pilot for Apollo 11 and he also flew on Gemini X in 1966.
Now, at 78 years of age, Collins decided not to give any media interviews during the hubbub of the Apollo 11 40th anniversary, and instead issued a Q & A of the questions he is most frequently asked. He did a great job of being both the interviewer and the interviewee, showing his humorous and honest nature. Collins took some of his answers from his book, Carrying the Fire, and any of the following sections in quotation marks are from that reference. Read on and find out for yourself if Mike Collins is a grumpy recluse!
Q. Circling the lonely moon by yourself, the loneliest person in the universe, weren’t you lonely?
A. No.
“Far from feeling lonely or abandoned, I feel very much a part of what is taking place on the lunar surface. 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. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two. I don’t mean to deny a feeling of solitude. It is there, reinforced by the fact that radio contact with the Earth abruptly cuts off at the instant I disappear behind the moon, I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. 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.” Collins suiting up for Apollo 11. Credit: NASA
Q. Did you have the best seat on Apollo 11?
A. No.
“The cancellation of 014 also freed Borman-Stafford-Collins for reassignment, and reassigned we were, but not as a unit. Tom Stafford moved up a notch and acquired his own highly experienced crew, John Young and Gene Cernan; they became McDivitt’s back-up. Score one for Tom. Borman and Collins got promoted to prime crew of the third
manned flight, picking up Bill Anders as our third member.
In the process, Collins also got ‘promoted’ from lunar module pilot to command module pilot, and lost right then and there his first chance to walk on the surface of the moon. The reason I had to move up was that Deke at that time had a firm rule that the command module pilot on all flights involving LM must have flown before in space, the idea being that he didn’t want any rookie in the CM by himself. Since Bill and Anders had not flown, I was it. Slowly it sunk in. No LM for me, no EVA, no fancy flying, no need to practice in helicopters anymore.”
Q. Were you happy with the seat you had?
A. Yes, absolutely. It was an honor.
Q. Has the space program helped young people become interested in careers in math and science? Don’t you tell kids to opt for these choices?
A. Yes and no. We definitely have a national problem in that kids seem to be going for money rather than what they consider ‘nerdy’ careers. Other countries are outstripping us in the quality and quantity of math and science grads, and this can only hurt in the long run. But a liberal arts education, particularly English, is a good entry point no matter what the later specialization. I usually talk up English.
Q. Turning to your flight, what is your strongest memory of Apollo 11?
A. Looking back at Earth from a great distance.
“I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified facade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or Communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied.”
Small, shiny, serene, blue and white, FRAGILE.
Q. That was 40 years ago. Would it look the same today?
A. Yes, from the moon, but appearances can be deceiving. It’s certainly not serene, but definitely fragile, and growing more so. When we flew to the moon, our population was 3 billion; today it has more than doubled and is headed for 8 billion, the experts say. I do
not think this growth is sustainable or healthy. The loss of habitat, the trashing of oceans, the accumulation of waste products – this is no way to treat a planet.
Q. You are starting to sound a little grumpy. Are you grumpy?
A. At age 78, yes, in many ways. Some things about current society irritate me, such as the adulation of celebrities and the inflation of heroism. Collins' official astronaut photo. Credit: NASA
Q. But aren’t you both?
A. Not me. Neither.
Heroes abound, and should be revered as such, but don’t count astronauts among them. We work very hard; we did our jobs to near perfection, but that was what we had hired on to do. In no way did we meet the criterion of the Congressional Medal of Honor: ‘above and beyond the call of duty.’
Celebrities? What nonsense, what an empty concept for a person to be, as my friend the great historian Daniel Boorstin put it, “known for his well-known-ness.” How many live-ins, how many trips to rehab, maybe–wow–you could even get arrested and then you would really be noticed. Don’t get me started.
Q. So, if I wanted to sum you up, I should say “grumpy?”
A. No, no, lucky! Usually, you find yourself either too young or too old to do what you really want, but consider: Neil Armstrong was born in 1930, Buzz Aldrin 1930, and Mike Collins 1930. We came along at exactly the right time. We survived hazardous careers and we were successful in them. But in my own case at least, it was 10 percent shrewd planning and 90 percent blind luck. Put LUCKY on my tombstone.
Q. Okay, but getting back to the space program. What’s next?
A. I hope Mars. It was my favorite planet as a kid and still is. As celestial bodies go, the moon is not a particularly interesting place, but Mars is. It is the closest thing to a sister planet that we have found so far. I worry that at NASA’s creeping pace, with the emphasis on returning to the moon, Mars may be receding into the distance. That’s about all I have to say.
Q. I understand you have become a recluse.
A. I’m not sure that’s the word. I think of the Brown Recluse, the deadliest of spiders, and I have a suntan, so perhaps. Anyway, it’s true I’ve never enjoyed the spotlight, don’t know why, maybe it ties in with the celebrity thing.
Q. So, how do you spend your time?
A. Running, biking, swimming, fishing, painting, cooking, reading, worrying about the stock market, searching for a really good bottle of cabernet under ten dollars. Moderately busy.
Q. No TV?
A. A few nature programs, and the Washington Redskins, that’s about it.
Q. Do you feel you’ve gotten enough recognition for your accomplishments?
A. Lordy, yes, Oodles and oodles.
Q. Oodles?? But don’t you have any keen insights?
A. Oh yeah, a whole bunch, but I’m saving them for the 50th.
