No one was certain that Eagle, the lunar landing module, would actually make it off the lunar surface. The experience seems to have been more inspiring and exhilarating than frightening.īut for most of the 21.5 hours while he waited alone, circling the rocky sphere of the Moon, Collins worried about whether his crewmates would return. Collins said afterward that he didn't feel lonely during those moments. "If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the Moon, and one plus God-knows-what on this side," he recorded. During those solo orbits, Columbia's pilot experienced periods of the most profound solitude any human being has ever known: 48 minutes at a time alone on the far side of the Moon, with no radio contact with Earth or his crewmates and a 2100 mile-wide ball of rock between him and every other human who ever lived. There was also the possibility of an in-space collision and the subsequent decompression of our cabin, so we were still in our spacesuits as Mike separated us from the Saturn third stage," Aldrin recalled later.Īnd a few days later, while Armstrong and Aldrin took small steps and giant leaps down on the lunar surface, Collins orbited the Moon alone in Columbia, for 21.5 hours. If the separation and docking did not work, we would return to Earth. "This of course was a critical maneuver in the flight plan.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |