Michael Collins - Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys

Michael Collins was the third man on Apollo 11. He was the bloke that stayed in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin landed, and the one who was routinely described as the loneliest human in the universe for being the most isolated from other people. This biographical account of his life before Apollo 11, and the years afterward was published in the early 1970s. It is, by far, the best of the astronaut books that I have read. A highly driven individual, Collins went in the airforce, applied twice to be an astronaut and ended up flying to space in Gemini 10 and around the moon in Apollo 11. Had he stayed with Nasa he would likely have commanded Apollo 17 and landed on the moon.

Carrying the Fire is an exceptionally interesting biography. Collins is no wooden military pilot - he is a deep thinking individuals, fascinated by literature and poetry (as this remarkable short interview with him illustrates). Collins was, I thought as I read this, one of the Apollo astronauts that I would most liked to have drunk a cup of tea with.

The book gives a sense of the drudergy behind the headline grabbing achievements of Nasa's space programme. Collins describes the monotony of the training. Every aspect of the Apollo missions was practiced before hand. The crew trained for every eventuality, and Collins explains how they were almost on autopilot. Nothing was left to chance - every conceivable disaster, however unlikely - was considered, trained for and practiced. But it was exhausting and hard work. By the time of the mission it seems that the crew could do it blindfold.

The mission was, of course, a collective effort involving thousands of people in addition to the three astronauts. But the crew is often portrayed as a collective. But Collins implies that they were really three very different individuals, that did not quite hit it off. It's clear that he felt that he was a slight outsider - not having to train for the landing meant that Aldrin and Armstrong had a very different, closer relationship. That said, it's interesting that Collins reports that Aldrin carried a huge chip on his shoulder that Armstrong pulled rank and took the first steps on the moon. I certainly got the impression that Collins didn't really like the other too very much. He confides, "evern as a self-acknowledged loner, I feel a bit freakish about our tendency as a crew to transfer only essential information, rather than thoughts or feelings."

This comes out in small ways. I don't think I had quite appreciated the extent to which the return from the lunar surface to rendezvous with the Command Module Colombia and Collins was such an unknown. Collins talks about the stress and anxiety - orbiting the moon surrounded by magnificent sights, but only wanting the mission to move on to the next step. When the other two come back and enter into Colombia, Collins says that Aldrin is the first one in and "I grab his head a hand on each temple, and am about to give him a smooch on the forehead... but then, embarrased, I think better of it and grab his hand, and then Neil's." It's a remarkable admission that illustrates the gulf between them.

Collins is a professional, and his book is full of the sort of detail that appeals to people like myself, obsessed with the details of spaceflight. But it is also full of the human factor - the struggles he had on Gemini with using the sextant to navigate the ship. The problems he encountered on the Gemini space walk. The fear and anxiety that were constantly there, among the amazing achievements of the space programme. Collins himself was a huge advocate of futher exploration, and his dismay with the retrograde motion of Nasa after Apollo is palpable in the prefaces written forty and fifty years after the first landing. 

But after Apollo, and in the years that followed, it's clear that Collins developed a much deeper set of ideas. He writes about his ecological worries for the planet and even, in 2009 and 2019 declares that "we need a new economic paradigm to produce prosperity without growth." Degrowth enthusasts would probably be surprised to find Michael Collins was a fellow traveller!

Reading Carrying the Fire is a rewarding experience. Collins was lucky to be part of one of humanity's finest achievements. He is greatful for that. But he also describes it in terms of work and personal life. He knew he could walk on the moon if he stuck with the programme, and was encouraged to do so. But he didn't, because he also wanted to live a life with his friends and family. He writes, candidly, about how Aldrin in particular struggled with the post-Nasa life, quickly being hospitalised for mental distress. Collins avoided that, though life had its ups and downs. Collins did not go back to the moon, because he could not face two or three more years of simulator training and stress. Anyway, he thought that others would carry the fire. But the politicians and penny counters had other ideas.

Related Reviews

First on the Moon - A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin Aldrin
French & Burgess - In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquillity 1965-1969
Swift - Across the Airless Wilds
Rubenstein - Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race
Wolfe - The Right Stuff
Scott & Leonov - Two Sides of the Moon