The Apollo Program - The History and Legacy of America’s Most Famous Space Missions by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors [Editors, Charles River]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2015-08-03T22:00:00+00:00

Michael Collins

An emergency back surgery took Collins off the mission and nearly ended his astronaut career, but his recovery allowed NASA to put him back won the Apollo Program and on the next available mission for the Moon. With Apollo 10’s successful mock-up and rehearsal for the Moon landing in lunar orbit, NASA could put Collins in the pilot seat of the CSM Columbia on Apollo 11.[49]

Michael Collins (b. October 31, 1930) was a rarity among NASA astronauts. He was a United States Air Forces test pilot, far different than the greater pool of pilots NASA recruited from, which typically included aviators from the Navy and Marine Corps. His 5,000 hours spent in the air gave him excellent control of the “stick,” which led to his inclusion in the Astronaut Group Three of 1963 and made him one of the best pilots in NASA.[50] He was used to carrying out experimental missions and was perfectly comfortable in that capacity. He would be required to accomplish pilot-tasks that no other aviator had ever done, primarily the one thing no Apollo mission could test for: the rendezvous with a lunar module on-return from the Moon with two astronauts onboard. Years later Collins remarked on the test of his skills as an aviator he would most likely be remembered for: “My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone; now I am within minutes of finding out the truth of the matter...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.”[51]

A good solution for Collins to avoid the infamy of “stranding” Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon lay with the Guidance and Navigation system. Computers and navigation software were one part of it, and gyroscopes also helped a pilot keep track of the three-dimensions of outer space; but it was the experience of Collins that made the difference in the success of Apollo. Collins, like the Apollo astronauts before and after him, would wear an eye patch to avoid the fatigue of endless hours of squinting. He peered through the ship’s sextant to sight stars in the night sky, no different than navigators had done for hundreds of generations on board sailing ships. When he located the position and altitudes of the stars, he combined the results with the onboard data of the ship’s speed and position. The purpose of this was to fire the CSM’s rocket and send Apollo 11 on its course to the Moon.[52]

The Guidance and Navigation unit was only as good as its human operator, and that responsibility also lay with Collins. When the gyroscopes were correctly set, Collins was in charge with the dial-in of the position of the two reference stars. The navigation system would then compare the ship’s position with the Inertial Measuring Unit, and the thrusters were fired to set the ship on its course.

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