There's a fantastic song about Collin's role in Apollo 11 that perfectly captures his role in the mission: "sitting backstage vs. taking the fame".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86q_xc3kZ9g&ab_channel=JohnC...
Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
61–70 of 191 posts
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Occurrence of failures directly correlates to occurrence of growth and innovation. SpaceX is (a) innovating very fast, and therefore we see lots of failures, (b) embracing those failures as opportunities to grow, and (c) installing many sensors and collecting a lot of data to maximize the chance that they can learn a lot from whatever failures occur. Make no mistake, if a company or institution isn't trying a lot and…
Then why shouldn't we apply this same standard to government projects? Any time a government project doesn't go perfectly it's used an excuse to scrap the very concept of government since "they can't do anything right".
As far as I'm concerned, the government is free to innovate, as long as my daily life (and that of my fellow Americans) is not part of what's being experimented with. We have the entire corpus of world history to refer to for experimental data on government policy -- let's use it as much as possible. Social crises aren't worth creating for the data they yield.
Regarding technical innovation, NASA did a lot of that in the 1960s. There were a lot of failures then (Mercury and Gemini programs), followed by incredible success (Apollo program). NASA's work with SpaceX is another great form of innovation -- pick the most innovative commercial partners and move forward.
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#63Collins' role in Apollo 11 is often minimized in the public conciseness, but I find it particularly fascinating from a human perspective. In certain ways it seems even scarier than Armstrong's and Aldrin's jobs. They at least had more direct control over their success in landing on the moon. Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of…
I read an article some time ago about the opposite scenario. I searched for the article just now but didn't find it; would be curious if anyone has a link. I remembered it something like this (but see soarfourmore's reply for a correction): what if the command module pilot became incapacitated but was still alive? The lunar module could still dock with the command module, but the astronauts would not be able to get i…
> The would not know at that point whether the CM pilot had his spacesuit helmet on or not, so they wouldn't know until they opened the hatch whether they had just killed him.
There were windows on the command module to look in, and if they weren't sure if he was responsive/unresponsive, they could tap iron onto the command module to let Collins know they were there and spacewalking.
It's an interesting thought process though, and I would appreciate the source if you can find it
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#64Collins' role in Apollo 11 is often minimized in the public conciseness, but I find it particularly fascinating from a human perspective. In certain ways it seems even scarier than Armstrong's and Aldrin's jobs. They at least had more direct control over their success in landing on the moon. Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of…
> Meanwhile no one had ever been as far from other life as he was on that flight. Xkcd has a good fact check on this: it's just about plausible that some Polynesian or Antarctic explorer, the last survivor of a doomed expedition, was the furthest from any other human. But more likely it is the CSM commanders. I note you say "other life" rather than "other humans", which would make it more clear cut in favour of Colli…
It's plausible. The moon's width is 2,158.8 miles, and I could imagine an explorer being >3000 miles from another human
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love how whenever SpaceX fails to land a booster that I see headlines of "SpaceX blows up another rocket", even if it still delivered its payload to orbit. I do wonder, however, where NASA would be if they would have continued with the DC-X prototype instead of abandoning it when it had a landing leg failure causing it to topple over in an early test.
It's because of Elon's hubris and the ways that hubris is baked into the entire institutional culture. I think far fewer people would delight in their failures if they showed an ounce of humility from any of their mistakes. Instead, they continue to make wild eyed proclamations and promises of impossible goals, but it's Elon so people continue to believe him for some reason.
Great progress comes from Elon's hubris.
> people continue to believe him for some reason.
I believe in him, and the reason is obvious. He gets things done nobody else seems able to.
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX is still blowing up rockets like it's 1950s NASA, maybe we should just fully fund the competent folks at 2020s NASA instead.
NASA/JPL have an ample history of blowing up experimental rockets. Same as the Russians. The Germans had it hard with the V2s as well I'd recommend people to look up into those previous failures (and SpaceX is finding "new ways" to fail)
See the book "V2" by Dornberger on all the failures of the V2 rockets. Quite a good read.
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Meanwhile no one had ever been as far from other life as he was on that flight. Xkcd has a good fact check on this: it's just about plausible that some Polynesian or Antarctic explorer, the last survivor of a doomed expedition, was the furthest from any other human. But more likely it is the CSM commanders. I note you say "other life" rather than "other humans", which would make it more clear cut in favour of Colli…
It's plausible. The moon's width is 2,158.8 miles, and I could imagine an explorer being >3000 miles from another human
I'm too lazy to do the math, but what's the point-to-point distance (through the planet) of points that are 5000km along the surface?
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#68Michael Collins is the ultimate team player. What a privilege it would have been to work with him. It's sad to read of his passing, but I'm glad he got 90 years. A great man.
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#69Collins' role in Apollo 11 is often minimized in the public conciseness, but I find it particularly fascinating from a human perspective. In certain ways it seems even scarier than Armstrong's and Aldrin's jobs. They at least had more direct control over their success in landing on the moon. Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of…
> Meanwhile no one had ever been as far from other life as he was on that flight. Xkcd has a good fact check on this: it's just about plausible that some Polynesian or Antarctic explorer, the last survivor of a doomed expedition, was the furthest from any other human. But more likely it is the CSM commanders. I note you say "other life" rather than "other humans", which would make it more clear cut in favour of Colli…
> Xkcd has a good fact check on this: it's just about plausible that some Polynesian or Antarctic explorer, the last survivor of a doomed expedition, was the furthest from any other human. But more likely it is the CSM commanders.
See Point Nemo:
> The oceanic pole of inaccessibility (48°52.5′S 123°23.6′W)[17] is the place in the ocean that is farthest from land. It lies in the South Pacific Ocean, 2,688 km (1,670 mi) from the nearest lands: Ducie Island (part of the Pitcairn Islands) to the north, Motu Nui (part of the Easter Islands) to the northeast, and Maher Island (near the larger Siple Island, off the coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica) to the south. The area is so remote that—as with any location more than 400 kilometres (about 250 miles) from an inhabited area—sometimes the closest human beings are astronauts aboard the International Space Station when it passes overhead.[18][19]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_inaccessibility#Oceani...
There are sailing races (group and solo (and non-stop)) that venture into those waters:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocean_Race
Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died
#70Collins' role in Apollo 11 is often minimized in the public conciseness, but I find it particularly fascinating from a human perspective. In certain ways it seems even scarier than Armstrong's and Aldrin's jobs. They at least had more direct control over their success in landing on the moon. Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of…
Sorry to correct you. But the first person alone in lunar orbit was John Young during the Apollo 10 mission