JUDY WOODRUFF: Fifty years ago this week,
the world watched as the Apollo 11 crew lifted
off, and then landed on the moon a few days
later.
Much of the attention, and especially during
milestone anniversaries, has focused on Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the astronauts
who first set foot on the moon, but the work
and efforts of their command module pilot
and crew member, Michael Collins, was crucial,
too.
As Miles O'Brien tells us, Collins had a perspective
and concerns of his own that were distinct
to the mission.
His profile is the focus of tonight's Leading
Edge segment.
MILES O'BRIEN: For a man spun from the rarest
of right stuff cloth, Mike Collins is surprisingly
humble and self-deprecating.
How much of what happened to you was luck,
do you think?
MICHAEL COLLINS, Former NASA Astronaut: Ooh,
luck.
I think...
MILES O'BRIEN: Or do you believe in luck?
That's another question.
MICHAEL COLLINS: Ardently, I believe in luck.
Luck should be put on my gravestone.
MILES O'BRIEN: Sure, he and his Apollo 11
compadres, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin,
were all born in the same year, 1930.
MICHAEL COLLINS: We just wandered by at exactly
the right moment.
And that is a consummate example of luck,
luck, and more luck.
I am a big believer in luck.
MILES O'BRIEN: But, of course, they really
weren't wandering.
No, they were marching with a warrior's purpose.
After all, luck favors the well-prepared.
In 1963, he was a test pilot, driven to go
faster and higher, when NASA selected him
in its third class of astronauts.
His first mission?
Gemini 10 in 1966.
The Gemini missions were primarily focused
on perfecting orbital rendezvous and docking,
the devilishly complex process of bringing
two ships together in space.
It consumed the time and talent of NASA's
engineering brain trust.
But what about space-walking?
MICHAEL COLLINS: Well, you just kind of go
out there.
And we really had not thought through just
what going out there meant.
MILES O'BRIEN: And he had two space walks
on his to-do list for Gemini 10.
MICHAEL COLLINS: One of the consequences of
our being ignorant, I have to say, about spacewalking
was, I found myself outside, no handholds
where I was, slippery surfaces, slipped off,
went ass over teakettle out into the unknown,
beyond the Gemini.
MILES O'BRIEN: It wasn't pretty, but he pulled
it off.
The worst part for us, during the gyrations,
his camera, unmoored from its tether, sending
his priceless selfies into the void.
Collins became the astronaut specialist on
space suit development.
Ironically, there were a few occasions when
wearing the suit during a long session in
the Apollo command module simulator gave him
claustrophobia.
MICHAEL COLLINS: I was wedged in below one
of the couches, and very limited space.
I couldn't really move.
I was almost trapped.
MILES O'BRIEN: Something like that, you probably
could never confess to anybody at that time,
right?
MICHAEL COLLINS: That is correct.
I never confessed that to anybody at that
time.
I was afraid I would be grounded.
MILES O'BRIEN: It's the worst word a pilot
can ever hear.
Fortunately, he never felt the panic in space.
He says he never really felt scared.
But he was worried pretty much the whole time.
MICHAEL COLLINS: I think of a flight to the
moon as being a long and fragile daisy chain
of events.
Any one of those links breaks, everything
downstream from that is useless.
There are so many things that can go wrong.
The machinery is compact, but complex, extremely
complex.
You can never relax -- or at least I could
never relax.
I could never say, things are going well.
That was almost a jinx to say that things
were going well.
I might think that in the back of my mind,
but, really, I would be a little on edge and
a little bit worried about the next little
link in that chain.
MILES O'BRIEN: When Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin climbed into the lunar module and made
their way toward their historic landing on
the lunar surface...
MAN: Roger.
Eagle is undocked.
MAN: Roger.
How does it look?
MAN: The Eagle has wings.
MILES O'BRIEN: ... Collins remained in the
Apollo command module, orbiting the moon,
not the best seat on this mission, but not
something he regretted.
MICHAEL COLLINS: I think you have got a fine
looking flying machine there, Eagle, despite
the fact you're upside down.
MILES O'BRIEN: Surprisingly, he didn't worry
about whether his crewmates would land successfully
.
MAN: The Eagle has landed.
MILES O'BRIEN: But, rather, whether they could
depart.
The engine to propel them off the lunar surface
was a huge exception to NASA's design philosophy
of redundant systems.
MICHAEL COLLINS: It was a solitary, single,
one chamber.
That chamber either ignited properly and got
you the thrust, or it didn't.
If it didn't, Neil and Buzz were dead on the
surface.
So, that was very critical worry point for
me.
MILES O'BRIEN: Did you guys talk about the
possibility that you might be the guy coming
home alone?
Did that ever come up?
MICHAEL COLLINS: It wasn't something I wanted
to discuss with them.
"Hey, Neil, suppose you are stranded forever
on the surface of the moon.
Would you mind terribly if I just sort of
headed home?"
I mean, it wasn't the kind of thing one talked
about, but it was a presence.
It was there.
MILES O'BRIEN: There was no need to have that
conversation, was there?
MICHAEL COLLINS: Exactly.
MILES O'BRIEN: Coming home alone, what would
that have been like?
MICHAEL COLLINS: Well, it would have been
terrible.
I mean, I don't -- I hate to think about it.
MAN: Tranquility Base Houston, you're cleared
for takeoff,
MAN: Roger.
Understand.
We are number one on the runway.
MAN: Beautiful.
Very smooth.
Very quiet ride.
MILES O'BRIEN: On their ride back home, they
marveled at our perch in the universe.
The moon was their destination, but, for Collins,
the real discovery was Earth itself.
MICHAEL COLLINS: All right, I have got the
world in my window for a change.
The moon was nothing compared to my view of
home planet.
It was it.
It was the main chance.
I would look out the window, and there would
be a tiny little thing.
You know, you could obscure it with your thumb.
But every time you put it away somewhere,
it would pop out.
It wanted you to look at it.
It wanted to be seen.
It was gorgeous.
It was tiny, shiny, the blue of the oceans,
the white of the clouds, little streak of
rust color that we call continents.
It just glowed.
Having gone out 240,000 miles and seeing it
gives me a much greater sense of fragility,
a much greater urge to do something to protect
that fragility as we go along.
MILES O'BRIEN: His memoir, "Carrying the Fire,"
remains the standard by which all books authored
by astronauts are judged, right stuff meets
right brain.
He is the poet laureate the Apollo astronauts,
and yet one of his regrets from that era involves
a lack of poetry at a historic moment.
In December 1968, he was the astronaut in
charge of radio communication with the crew
of Apollo 8, the first voyage to orbit the
moon.
It was his job to give mission commander Frank
Borman permission to fire the rocket that
would give them enough velocity to escape
the gravitational pull of Earth.
In NASA parlance, it was called trans-lunar
injection, or TLI.
It was a historic first.
MICHAEL COLLINS: So, I thought, when this
moment comes in history, this is it, the pope
will certainly send a message.
The president will come.
Sinatra will sing.
There will be some acknowledgment of it.
And in the meantime, of course, it's up to
Frank and me.
And we're both right up there.
We are going to handle this thing properly.
So, I went first.
I said:
Apollo 8, you are go for TLI.
Over.
And Frank rose to the occasion.
And he said:
FRANK BORMAN, NASA Astronaut: Roger.
Understand.
We are go for TLI.
MICHAEL COLLINS: That was it.
That was it.
That was the whole thing.
That was ridiculous.
(LAUGHTER)
MICHAEL COLLINS: I mean, what do we have all
of this for?
MILES O'BRIEN: If you had to do that one over,
what would you say?
(LAUGHTER)
MICHAEL COLLINS: I don't know.
I don't know.
I have to think that one over.
MILES O'BRIEN: A few weeks later, I interviewed
him again at the World Science Festival in
New York City.
He was ready.
Here's your moment for a do-over.
What would you say if you could do it again?
MICHAEL COLLINS: Uh-oh.
(LAUGHTER)
MICHAEL COLLINS: Well, I would abide by the
NASA rules, which you can't -- you can't say
more than I think eight words in a row, and,
preferably, they will all be monosyllabic.
(LAUGHTER)
MICHAEL COLLINS: But, under those conditions,
I would say: "Apollo 8, the moon is yours.
Go."
(LAUGHTER)
MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
MILES O'BRIEN: Fifty years ago, the moon became
ours, thanks to Apollo 11.
Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were the trio
at the tip of a rocket that flew into history,
thanks to the concerted effort of more than
300,000 people and the consistent support
of American taxpayers.
When it was done, inhabitants in all corners
of our fragile planet saw it as a triumph
for not just one country, but for humanity
as a whole.
NEIL ARMSTRONG, NASA Astronaut: That's one
small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
MILES O'BRIEN: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Miles O'Brien.
