Carrying the Fire (Armchair Astronaut, Mar. 2011)

Welcome to this fifth edition of Armchair Astronaut! This month, I'm featuring another awesome astronaut's book, Carrying the Fire. Let me explain...

Recently I finished reading an absolutely wonderful book entitled Carrying the Fire by Mike Collins. Collins, if you remember, was the command module pilot on Apollo 11.

I must say that Carrying the Fire is one of the most awesome space books I've ever read! For one, Collins is really really funny! He tells his story with much good clean humor, but with authenticity as well.  I also rank him up there with John Glenn; he has stayed married to his original wife and he also does not pepper Carrying the Fire with language/words that I don't like.

Collins starts out his autobiography with telling of his days growing up in Rome, Puerto Rico, New York City, and even Oklahoma. Later he joined the Air Force and eventually was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in California as a test pilot. Collins applied to be an astronaut several times before being selected for the third group of NASA astronauts ("The Fourteen") in 1963.

Collins goes on to tell, with much humor, his feelings on his "weeks in the barrel", where he (and other astronauts), would make public appearances at various events and functions. Before he had flown in space, almost nobody knew who he was. In fact, in one such appearance, a little boy came up to Collins and said, "When is the real astronaut coming??" ;) No astronaut liked their "week in the barrel", so that's why Collins was so excited to be assigned to a crew. When asked why he wanted to go to the moon, Collins replied, (I'm paraphrasing) "Well, it's either that or a week in the barrel!" ;)

As each new astronaut came aboard, they were assigned a particular area to study and become an expert in. For Collins, his specialty was pressure suits (commonly called "space suits") and EVA, or Extra-Vehicular Activity. Coming into NASA in 1963/64, Collins was finally assigned to the backup crew of Gemini 7, a fourteen-day marathon spaceflight orbiting the Earth. As the backup pilot of Gemini 7, Collins knew all the procedures very well, including how to use the bathroom up in space. It is quite funny--the OFFICIAL NASA-approved Gemini 7 procedure to go potty was 20 steps long!!

After completing his backup duties with Gemini 7, Mike Collins was assigned to the prime crew of Gemini 10. With his commander John Young, Collins prepped for and flew a three-day long flight with some very ambitious spacewalks. As an EVA/spacesuit specialist, Collins was delighted to be assigned as the spacewalker for Gemini 10. As the flight plan called, Gemini 10 would dock with two Agenas, or satellites. Collins would perform two spacewalks. In one he would just stand up in the cockpit, with the hatch open to take some photographs. In a very challenging second spacewalk, Collins would attempt to straddle one of the Agenas, crawl on it, and retrive some material from the satellite. Collins also crawled all around the Gemini spacecraft as well, not to mention conducting several experiments as well.

A Gemini 10 crew portrait: John Young (left)
and Mike Collins (right).

The experiments continued after Collins' final spacewalk; however, the photography didn't. Collins had captured what he thought what might be the most beautiful photos of the whole Gemini program; but alas, during his complex spacewalk his camera accidentally came out of his pocket and got lost forever!

Losing the camera wasn't the only problem on Gemini 10, however. For example, when trying to rendezvous with the first Agena, John Young used way too much fuel, even though he had mastered the skill in the simulator. Collins was frustrated that he and Young were only allowed three days for their flight instead of the needed four, and both astronauts were ticked when Mission Control told them to talk. Now, normally talking in space wasn't such a big deal, but at the time the reprimand came, Young and Collins were in the middle of an extremely complex maneuver that could have disastrous results if they didn't execute it correctly. And in the middle of all this, their boss (Deke Slayton, a man of very few words) comes on the radio and tells them to talk! Collins expressed his frustration in Carrying the Fire that while he and Young were in the middle of a life-and-death procedure, Houston wanted to talk about baseball! Nevertheless, on July 21, 1966 John Young and Mike Collins plopped down into the ocean with many flight plan objectives met and a job well done.

1966 ended and 1967 began. Gemini ended, and Apollo began. Collins tells in his own words the sad, sad tale of the Apollo 1 fire and his involvement in it. He also goes on to talk about the different crews he was a part of. After being on a couple different Apollo crews, he got "promoted" from lunar module pilot to command module pilot when he was placed on the Apollo 8 crew with Frank Borman and Bill Anders. Unfortunately, Collins wasn't able to fly on the mission that we now call Apollo 8. As Collins would go around, he started realizing that his legs weren't working the way they should. In fact, they weren't working well at all! He sought medical help, and found out that he needed surgery, in which two vertebrae would be fused together. Naturally, that took him off the Apollo 8 crew, and Collins' backup, Jim Lovell, took his place.

Michael Collins training for Apollo 11.

Under Deke Slayton's rule, an astronaut would serve as backup crew on X mission, and then be on the prime crew three missions later. So it went for Mike Collins. He had once been a crew member of Apollo 8; now he was assigned as the Command Module Pilot (CMP) of Apollo 11. The crew of Apollo 11 was announced on January 9, 1969, and was set to be launched in July of that same year. As soon as the crew was announced, Collins--along with his Apollo 11 crewmates Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin--started preparing like crazy. Collins tells in Carrying the Fire how he only gave Apollo 11 a 50/50 chance of making a lunar landing. He felt like there was too much risk and uncertainty, and had 11 distinct areas where he felt the mission could go wrong. He felt like the whole mission was just too much of a daisy chain, and if one thing (or one person--also known as Mike Collins) goofed up, off they go, never to return to Earth.

Mike Collins was probably one of the very few people who did not see or hear the first lunar landing. He was on the backside of the Moon when touchdown happened, and when he popped back out to the front side, he tried looking for Armstrong and Aldrin, but in vain. Collins popped out shortly after the touchdown, however. And at this point in his book he told a very funny story! Let me explain...

Collins told of how there is a three-second delay in voice communications between the Earth and the Moon. Right after the Lunar Module (LM) Eagle touched down, Houston told Armstrong and Aldrin that there were a lot of smiling faces down on Earth. Armstrong replied that there were two of them on the Moon! Collins interjected and said to not forget the one up in the command module, as in, another smiling face. But with the delay in voice communications, Collins' comment may have been interrupted another way. Between Armstrong and Collins' comments, Houston had told Armstrong and Aldrin what a fantastic job they did. Right after Houston, Collins' comment came through: "Don't forget one in the command module"! Collins meant to say that there was a smiling face in the Command Module (CM), but instead it came through as though Collins wanted some praise too!

Collins and his crewmates being recovered from Columbia.

Four days later on July 24, 1969, Collins plopped his command module Columbia down in the Pacific Ocean. After being recovered, he and his crewmates went into quarantine for several weeks, just to make sure that they didn't bring back any "moon germs"! But the time passed and no one got sick. The Apollo 11 crew was released, and they and their wives went on a whirl-wind tour of thirty-plus countries, sometime seeing several kings in one day!

After Apollo 11 Mike Collins retired from NASA to spend more time with his family. He later became involved with the Smithsonian, and helped open the Air and Space Museum by America's Bicentennial. He also wrote several books besides Carrying the Fire, including one for children as well as a book on flight to Mars.

I think you can see this by now, but I'm a firm fan of Carrying the Fire! If you want to read an authentic yet humorous book on America's space program, read Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys!