MICHAEL COLLINS, FLYING THE APOLLO 11 TO THE MOON

Today, The Grandma wants to pay homage to Michael Collins, the American astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the Moon in 1969, who has died in Naples, Florida at the age of 90.

Michael Collins (October 31, 1930-April 28, 2021) was an American astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the Moon in 1969 while his crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, made the first crewed landing on the surface.

He was also a test pilot and major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

Collins graduated from the United States Military Academy with the Class of 1952. He joined the United States Air Force, and flew F-86 Sabre fighters at Chambley-Bussières Air Base, France. He was accepted into the U.S. Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960, also graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class III).

Selected as part of NASA's third group of 14 astronauts in 1963, Collins flew in space twice. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10 in 1966, in which he and Command Pilot John Young performed orbital rendezvous with two spacecraft and undertook two extravehicular activities (EVAs, also known as spacewalks).

On the 1969 Apollo 11 mission he became one of 24 people to fly to the Moon, which he orbited thirty times. He was the fourth person (and third American) to perform a spacewalk, the first person to have performed more than one spacewalk, and, after Young, who flew the command module on Apollo 10, the second person to orbit the Moon alone.

More information: NASA

After retiring from NASA in 1970, Collins took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later, he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum, and held this position until 1978, when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980, he took a job as vice president of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own consulting firm.

Along with his Apollo 11 crewmates, Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011.

Collins was born on October 31, 1930, in Rome, Italy. He was the second son of James Lawton Collins (1882-1963), a career U.S. Army officer, who was the U.S. military attaché there from 1928 to 1932, and Virginia C. née Stewart (1895-1987). Collins had an older brother, James Lawton Collins Jr. (1917-2002), and two older sisters, Virginia and Agnes.

Collins' decision to join the United States Air Force (USAF) was motivated by both the wonder of what the next fifty years might bring in aeronautics, and to avoid accusations of nepotism had he joined the Army -where his brother was already a colonel, his father had reached the rank of major general and his uncle, General J. Lawton Collins (1896-1987), was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army.

Collins began basic flight training in the T-6 Texan at Columbus Air Force Base in Columbus, Mississippi, in August 1952, then moved on to San Marcos Air Force Base in Texas to learn instrument and formation flying, and finally to James Connally Air Force Base in Waco, Texas, for training in jet aircraft. Flying came easily to him, and unlike many of his colleagues, he had little fear of failure. He was awarded his wings upon completion of the course at Waco, and in September 1953, he was chosen for advanced day-fighter training at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, flying F-86 Sabres.

The inspiration for Collins in his decision to become a NASA astronaut was the Mercury Atlas 6 flight of John Glenn on February 20, 1962, and the thought of being able to circle the Earth in 90 minutes.

Collins applied for the second group of astronauts that year. To raise the numbers of Air Force pilots selected, the Air Force sent their best applicants to a charm school. Medical and psychiatric examinations at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, and interviews at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston followed. In mid-September, he found out he had not been accepted. It was a blow even though he did not expect to be selected.

Collins rated the second group of nine as better than the Mercury Seven who preceded them, or the five groups that followed, including his own.

After this basic training, the third group were assigned specializations. Collins received his first choice: pressure suits and extravehicular activities (EVAs, also known as spacewalks). His job was to monitor development and act as a liaison between the Astronaut Office and contractors. He was disturbed by the secretive planning of Ed White's EVA on Gemini 4, because he was not involved despite being the person with the greatest knowledge of the subject.

More information: Digital Photography Review

Shortly after Gemini 10, Collins was assigned to the backup crew for the second crewed Apollo flight, with Borman as commander (CDR), Stafford as command module pilot (CMP), and Collins as lunar module pilot (LMP). Along with learning the new Apollo command and service module (CSM) and the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), Collins received helicopter training, as these were thought to be the best way to simulate the landing approach of the LM.

The mission patch of Apollo 11 was the creation of Collins. Jim Lovell, the backup commander, mentioned the idea of eagles, a symbol of the United States. 

Collins liked the idea and found a painting by artist Walter A. Weber in a National Geographic Society book, Water, Prey, and Game Birds of North America, traced it and added the lunar surface below and Earth in the background. The idea of an olive branch, a symbol of peace, came from a computer expert at the simulators. The call sign Columbia for the CSM came from Julian Scheer, the NASA Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs. He mentioned the idea to Collins in a conversation and Collins could not think of anything better.

On August 12, 1946, Congress passed an authorization bill for a National Air Museum, to be administered by the Smithsonian Institution, and located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Under the U.S. legislative system, authorization is insufficient; Congress also has to pass an appropriation bill allocating funding. Since this was not done, there was no money for the museum building.

Collins held the directorship until 1978, when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. During this time, although no longer an active-duty USAF officer after he joined the State Department in 1970, he remained in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He attained the rank of major general in 1976, and retired in 1982.

On April 28, 2021, Collins died in Naples, Florida, at the age of 90.

More information: NBC

I think a future flight should include a poet,
a priest and a philosopher...
We might get a much better idea of what we saw.

Michael Collins

NEIL ALDEN ARMSTRONG: A SUCCESSFUL LIFE IN SPACE

Neil Alden Armstrong

Joseph de Ca'th Lon is in Florida, where he's visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville and Cape Canaveral. Joseph, who is a person very interested in science, wants to talk us about one of the most important astronauts around the world: Neil Armstrong, the man who  took the first step onto the Moon.

Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930-August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut, engineer, and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. 

Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, where he logged over 900 flights. He later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California.

More information: NASA

A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first space flight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. He performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott. This mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his reentry control fuel to prevent a dangerous spin caused by a stuck thruster, in the first in-flight space emergency.

More information: Kennedy Space Center

Joseph de Ca'th Lon in Cape Canaveral

Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11, the first manned Moon landing mission in July 1969. 

Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module. 

Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978. Armstrong and his former crewmates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

Armstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio on August 25, 2012, at the age of 82, after complications from coronary artery bypass surgery.

Download Space Exploration by Joseph de Ca'th Lon

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand. 

Neil Armstrong

JULY, 21 1969: APOLLO 11, MAN WALKS ON THE MOON

Apollo 11 Command Module

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC.  

Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC; Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected 21.5 kg of lunar material to bring back to Earth. Michael Collins piloted the command module Columbia alone in lunar orbit while they were on the Moon's surface. Armstrong and Aldrin spent just under a day on the lunar surface before rendezvousing with Columbia in lunar orbit.

More information: NASA

Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16, and was the fifth manned mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that landed back on Earth; a service module, which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module that had two stages, a lower stage for landing on the Moon, and an upper stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. 

More information: NASA

Aldrin bootprint on the Moon

After being sent toward the Moon by the Saturn V's upper stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered into lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into the lunar module Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility. 

They stayed a total of about 21.5 hours on the lunar surface. The astronauts used Eagle's upper stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. 

They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that blasted them out of lunar orbit on a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.

More information: NASA

Broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience, Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind. Apollo 11 effectively ended the Space Race and fulfilled a national goal proposed in 1961 by U.S. President John F. Kennedy: before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. 

July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind. 

Neil Armstrong

MÍCHEÁL Ó COILEÁIN: IRISH COURAGE TO FREEDOM

Michael Collins

Mícheál Ó Coileáin (1890-1922) was a soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the struggle for Irish independence in the early 20th century. Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, politician, Minister for Finance, Director of Information, and Teachta Dála (TD) for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Adjutant General, Director of Intelligence, and Director of Organisation and Arms Procurement for the IRA, President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood from November 1920 until his death, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. 

Subsequently, he was both Chairman of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-chief of the National Army. Collins was shot and killed in an ambush in August 1922 during the Irish Civil War.

Born in Woodfield, Sam's Cross, now the Michael Collins Birthplace, near Clonakilty, County Cork, Collins was the third son and youngest of eight children. Most biographies give his date of birth as 16 October 1890, but his tombstone cites 12 October 1890. 

The struggle for Home Rule, along with labour unrest, had led to the formation in 1913 of two major nationalist paramilitary groups who would launch the Easter Rising: the Irish Citizen Army was established by James Connolly and the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), to protect strikers from the Dublin Metropolitan Police during the 1913 Dublin Lockout. 

Michael Collins in a meeting

The Irish Volunteers were created in the same year by the IRB and other nationalists in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers (UVF), an Ulster loyalist body pledged to oppose Home Rule by force. 

Collins became one of the leading figures in the post-Rising independence movement spearheaded by Arthur Griffith, editor and publisher of the main nationalist newspaper The United Irishman, which Collins had read avidly as a boy. 

Like many senior Sinn Féin representatives Collins was elected as an MP, for Cork South, with the right to sit in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in London. Unlike their rivals in the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), Sinn Féin MPs had announced that they would not take their seats in Westminster but instead would set up an Irish Parliament in Dublin. 

On 22 August 1922, during the Irish Civil War, Michael Collins was killed in an ambush here by anti-treaty IRA forces while travelling in convoy from Bandon. The ambush was planned in a farmhouse in Béal na Bláth close to The Diamond Bar.

Brendan Behan wrote the poem The laughing boy lamenting the death of Collins. This poem was translated into Greek in 1961 by Vasilis Rotas. In October of the same year, Mikis Theodorakis composed the song Tο γελαστό παιδί, The laughing boy, using Rotas' translation. The song was recorded by Maria Farantouri in 1966.

More information: BBC

 Early this morning, I signed my death warrant.

Michael Collins

BLOODY SUNDAY: 21 NOVEMBER 1920 - 30 JANUARY 1972

Michael Collins

Bloody Sunday, in Irish Domhnach na Fola, was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. In total, 31 people were killed, including eleven British soldiers and police, sixteen Irish civilians, and three Irish republican prisoners.

The day began with an Irish Republican Army operation, organised by Michael Collins, to assassinate the Cairo Gang, a team of undercover British intelligence agents working and living in Dublin. IRA members went to a number of addresses and shot dead fourteen people: nine British Army officers, a Royal Irish Constabulary officer, two members of the Auxiliary Division, two civilians, and one man, Leonard Wilde, whose exact status is uncertain.

Later that afternoon, members of the Auxiliary Division and RIC opened fire on the crowd at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, killing fourteen civilians and wounding at least sixty. 

More information: Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920

That evening, three IRA suspects being held in Dublin Castle were beaten and killed by their captors, who claimed they were trying to escape.

Overall, while its events cost relatively few lives, Bloody Sunday was considered a great victory for the IRA, as Collins's operation severely damaged British intelligence, while the later reprisals did no real damage to the guerrillas but increased support for the IRA at home and abroad.

Bloody Sunday was one of the most significant events to take place during the Irish War of Independence, which followed the declaration of an Irish Republic and its parliament, Dáil Éireann. The army of the new republic, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), waged a guerrilla war against the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), its auxiliary organisations, and the British Army, who were tasked with suppressing the Irish rebellion. Some members of the Gaelic Athletic Association which owned Croke Park were nationalists, but others were not.

Bloody Sunday, sometimes called the Bogside Massacre, was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. 

British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march against internment. Fourteen people died: thirteen were killed outright, while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries.

More information: Four Bloody Sundays

Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles. 

The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and the Northern Resistance Movement. The soldiers involved were members of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, also known as 1 Para.

Give us the future. We’ve had enough of your past. 

Give us back our country to live in, to grow in, to love.

Michael Collins