Michael Collins: The Man Who Didn’t Walk on the Moon

56 years ago today¹, Apollo 11 made the first manned landing on another world. Ask the average American about it, and they’ll likely be able to name the mission’s commander, Neil Armstrong, who famously made his “one small step” speech as he climbed out of the Lunar Module Eagle; they might also remember Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, who walked with Armstrong in the Sea of Tranquility. They will not be able to name the third astronaut, though. They probably won’t know there was a third astronaut. Here, I’ll tell you the story of Michael Collins—the forgotten third member of the Apollo 11 crew, who stayed aboard the ship while his friends went down to the surface, and who, for 24 hours, was the most isolated human alive.

Michael Collins was born on Halloween, 1930, in Rome, where his father served as the US Army’s attaché—and following in the elder Collins’s footsteps, he went on to pursue a military career. He graduated from West Point in 1952. From there: a commission in the Air Force, a few years flying F-86 fighters in Europe, a stint at the elite testing program at Edwards Air Base. It was a striking career, for sure. But like so many other test pilots of his era, he wasn’t satisfied merely in the cockpit of an earthbound plane, and in the fall of 1963, he applied for NASA’s third recruitment. Astronaut Deke Slayton called him personally to deliver the good news.

Michael Collins flew to space for the first time in 1966, after three years of intensive training. By then, the US was well into the Gemini program, launching two-man orbital flights that paved the way for trips to the Moon. He took off on July 18 aboard Gemini 10, occupying the copilot’s seat next to veteran astronaut John Young; their mission was to perform a double rendezvous, meeting with two different Agena boosters in Earth orbit, demonstrating new techniques for docking and spacewalking. Collins left the ship each time they docked, becoming the first person to go on EVA twice during the same mission.

Not long after he returned to Earth, Collins began training for the next phase of the US space program: Apollo. He was assigned to the backup crew of Apollo 2, which was canceled, and then to Apollo 8, which flew successfully in December of 1968—just not with Collins aboard. His career as an astronaut was almost cut short by the sudden appearance of a disc herniation in his spine, which put him in a neck brace for months. He recovered just in time to be assigned as the Command Module pilot for Apollo 11, flying with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

NASA crew assignments at this time were impersonal and bureaucratic, chosen months or even years in advance, freely shuffled around as events developed. Fate ordained that Neil Armstrong would be the first man to walk on the Moon, in his capacity as mission commander. Buzz Aldrin, the pilot of the Lunar Module, Eagle, would go with him down to the surface. But the Apollo Lunar module only had space for two men; Michael Collins, as pilot of the Command Module, Columbia, would remain in orbit around the Moon, alone in the mothership, watching the gray and dusty craters roll by.

Did he feel cheated? Robbed of glory? From the public record, there were no hard feelings at all. Michael Collins was a consummate professional, and he was happy just to perform his designated role, which he viewed as no less important than that of the moonwalkers. He was their pilot, safeguarding the only vehicle that could deliver all three astronauts safely home. While Neil Armstrong made his giant leap, Collins took care of Columbia far overhead, circling round and round the Moon. He made 30 solo orbits while his friends were away. For 40 minutes of each orbit, he flew above the Moon’s far side, out of radio contact with Earth—all alone.

Mission Control assumed that he would be lonely. The log for July 20 said of him: “Not since Adam has any human known such solitude.” But Collins would later recall that he was in high spirits, excited and energized by the mission, confident in his ability to carry it out. Profoundly isolated though he was, he didn’t let that bother him. He went calmly about his duties—dumping excess water from the fuel cells, maintaining the life support systems, and trying (unsuccessfully) to spot the Lunar Module from orbit.

Collins was not entirely without worries during his 24 hours alone on Columbia. The thought occurred to him that Armstrong and Aldrin might die while they were on the surface—in which case he would have to return to Earth on his own, a “marked man for life.” Worse, there was a technical glitch aboard the ship: on his third orbit, the temperature in the ship’s cooling system dipped below its safe minimum. There was a real risk that parts of Columbia would freeze. NASA recommended a by-the-book contingency procedure, but Collins came up with his own solution, which was to simply flip the system to manual control, and then back to automatic. That seemed to do the trick. By the time he’d passed around the far side and back into communications range, he could report that the problem was solved.

His solitude came to an end in short order. A day after its departure, the upper stage of Eagle took off from the lunar surface, rejoining the mothership in space. Aldrin and Armstrong came back aboard Columbia. NASA plotted a course to Earth, the crew of Apollo 11 fired their engine again, and they were on their way home, as heroes. They splashed down safely in the Pacific on July 24. President Nixon awarded all three of them the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

By his own choice, Apollo 11 was end of Michael Collins’s career as an astronaut. While he was offered a chance to walk on the Moon, likely as the commander of Apollo 17, he turned it down—the rigorous life of a spaceman was taking too much from his wife, Patricia, and their son and two daughters. The way he saw it, he’d done his part to fulfill President Kennedy’s dream of a man on the Moon before the decade was out. There was no thirst for further glory.

Collins went on to serve in a number of prominent government roles, including Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (1969-1971) and Director of the National Air and Space Museum (1971-1978). He also served in the private sector, with a stint as vice president of an aerospace company, and some consulting work. Always he lived in the shadow of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, who had captured the public imagination in a way he hadn’t. Yet, throughout the decades, he was happy with how things had turned out. In an interview in 2019, he said: “Did I have the best seat on Apollo 11? No. Was I happy with the seat I did have? Yes. I really was. And to be any small part of that suited me very well… Besides I was their ticket home. They couldn’t get home without me.”

Michael Collins passed away on April 28, 2021, at the age of 90. He may never be a household name, but he deserves to be remembered—in his own way, he was a trailblazer, even if he never quite set foot on the Moon.

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1. It’s still July 20, at the time and place of writing! Your mileage may vary. ↩︎