Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Collins, Aldrin Recall Historical Moments in Trip to Moon


Wed 17 Jul 2019 | 06:13 AM
Yassmine Elsayed

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recalled the moments before he flew to the moon 50 years ago with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

As the US celebrates 50 years anniversary of Apollo11th mission of moon landing, NASA invited Collins and Aldrin to the same spot at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A, the departure point for humanity's first moon landing.

Collins had the spotlight to himself this time — Armstrong has been gone for seven years and Aldrin canceled.

Collins, 88, said: "Wonderful feeling to be back." He added: "There's a difference this time. I want to turn and ask Neil a question and maybe tell Buzz Aldrin something, and of course, I'm here by myself."

At NASA's invitation, Collins marked the precise moment — 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969 — that the Saturn V rocket blasted off. He was seated at the base of the pad alongside Kennedy's director, Robert Cabana, a former space shuttle commander.

Collins recalled the tension surrounding the crew that day. "Apollo 11 ... was serious business. We, crew, felt the weight of the world on our shoulders. We knew that everyone would be looking at us, friend or foe, and we wanted to do the best we possibly could," he said.

Collins remained in lunar orbit, tending to Columbia, the mother ship, while Armstrong and Aldrin landed in the Eagle on July 20, 1969, and spent 2 ½ hours walking the gray, dusty lunar surface.

In Huntsville, Alabama, where the Saturn V was developed, some 4,900 model rockets lifted off simultaneously, commemorating the moment the Apollo 11 crew blasted off for the moon. More than 1,000 youngsters attending Space Camp counted down ... "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" — and cheered as the red, white and blue rockets created a gray cloud, at least for a few moments, in the sky.

Aldrin, 89, hosted a gala in Southern California last Saturday.

On his part, Aldrin recounted feeling sure-footed in the one-sixth gravity of the lunar surface while gazing at the "magnificent desolation" around him.

Reuters quoted Aldrin saying he and his crew-mates were so absorbed in doing their jobs that they were oddly disconnected from how momentous the occasion was as it unfolded for hundreds of millions of people on Earth, watching it all on live television.

"I sometimes think the three of us missed 'the big event'," Aldrin said during a 50th anniversary gala at the Ronald Reagan Library outside Los Angeles. "While we were out there on the moon, the world was growing closer together, right here."

Aldrin recounted highlights of his Apollo 11 experiences in an interview with an organizer of Saturday's event, which was closed to the media. A transcript was furnished to Reuters.

"We did not know the instant of leaving the ground. We only knew it from the instruments and voice communications which confirmed liftoff," he recalled. "We sort of looked at each other and thought, 'We must be on our way.'"

After reaching lunar orbit, leaving Collins behind as pilot of the command module Columbia, Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the moon's surface in the Eagle. Armstrong ended up piloting the craft to a safe landing after overriding a computer guidance system that was heading it to a field of boulders.

Aldrin's voice was then heard in the TV broadcast calling out navigation data as Eagle moved downward and forward over the surface to touchdown.

"We knew we were continuing to burn fuel. We knew what we had, then we heard '30 seconds left.' If we ran out of fuel, we knew it would be a hard landing. We saw the shadow cast in front of us. That was new, not something we saw in the simulator," Aldrin recounted.

"I saw dust creating a haze, not particles, but a haze that went out, dust the engine was picking up," he said.

In the final seconds of descent, Aldrin confirmed an indicator light showing that at least one of the probes dangling from Eagle's footpads had touched the surface - calling out "Contact light."

Seconds later came Armstrong's famed radio announcement to mission control in Houston - "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

The relief of the two astronauts was mutual. "Neil remembers we shook hands, and I recall putting my hand on his shoulder and we smiled," Aldrin said.

Hours later, Armstrong's words upon becoming the first human to set foot on the moon - "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" - were immortalized. As Aldrin recalls, "Neil thought of that. It wasn't on the checklist."

"I then got in position to come down ... came down the ladder, and jumped off, being careful not to lock the door behind me," he said, recounting "it was easy to balance" as he moved about the lunar surface to set up NASA experiments.

To this day, Aldrin added, he stands by his own though somewhat less famous catch phrase from the moon - his impromptu description of the moonscape as a scene of "magnificent desolation."

"I guess I said that because it was magnificent," he said. "We had gotten there, and it looked pretty desolate. But it was magnificent desolation. I think Neil remarked the beauty, too."