If there’s one lad in the history of the space race who never gets the credit he deserves, it’s poor aul Michael Collins (not that one, the other one).
By Adrian Collins
The history books will always report that Michael Collins went on the mission to the moon, but for the average man, he is often forgotten.
Everyone remembers Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, and also Buzz Aldrin, the guy with the catchy name who also went out with them, but poor aul Mick is often left off the list, or simply known as “the other guy”.
Well, we’re here to tell a little bit of his story. Collins is one of only 24 people to ever fly to the moon, and while he orbited, the other two lads went to explore the surface.
Born in Rome, and having some Irish ancestry, Collins was moved around a lot as a child thanks to the fact that his father was in the armed forces. When the time came for him to choose a career, he opted to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the military too.
Collins was recognised as a talented pilot, and thanks to also training as a repair man, he was able to accumulate the necessary 1500 hours of flying time to become a test pilot at the Famous Edwards Air Force Base in California.
From there, he entered into the NASA program when he was offered the chance to become an astronaut. He trained for the Gemini 10 flight in 1996 and went up into space, as well as working on an earlier Apollo mission, but it was the historic Apollo 11 where he really made his name, or didn’t as the case may be.
Collins designed the now famous logo for the Apollo 11 mission, and was in his own words, as vital to the mission as the other two. He was, at one stage during the mission, on his own in the command module, orbiting the moon and out of radio contact with Earth, leading people to remark that “not since Adam has any human known such solitude”.
When they successfully landed back, they were paraded around all over the place, and Collins was promoted to Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs after Richard Nixon himself convinced him to take the position. He was later director of the National Air and Space Museum and in 1978 became the undersecretary of the world famous Smithsonian Institution.
Not too shabby a set of achievements in the life of the man that many forget played a vital role in the moon landing, so don’t forget to mention the name of Michael Collins the next time you thinks about Buzz and Armstrong.
If you want your name to go down in the history books and become the first Irishman in space, head over to lynxapollo.com and sign up for the Space Academy. Leave a man, come back a hero.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
