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Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

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Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#81

Post by trothamel »

mulmen wrote: post #79
Zickzack wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of abandoning his crewmates to die on the moon and fly back to Earth himself. He would have died in orbit then, just a little bit closer to the rest of mankind. There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back. He was dependent on the outcome of the Lunar…

Wait really? I never knew that. I thought the CSM had guidance and the main engine, why did he need the LEM to get home?

That's correct. He could have gotten home without the LM. (See Apollo 8, which didn't have an LM at all.)

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#82

Post by jhgb »

Zickzack wrote: post #77
slg wrote: post #29

Collins' 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…

> Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of abandoning his crewmates to die on the moon and fly back to Earth himself. He would have died in orbit then, just a little bit closer to the rest of mankind. There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back. He was dependent on the outcome of the Lunar…

> There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back.

Where did you get that idea from? This is the first time I see someone claiming something like that.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#83

Post by kyberias »

Zickzack wrote: post #77
slg wrote: post #29

Collins' 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…

> Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of abandoning his crewmates to die on the moon and fly back to Earth himself. He would have died in orbit then, just a little bit closer to the rest of mankind. There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back. He was dependent on the outcome of the Lunar…

That is not true. They jettisoned the Eagle's ascent stage and returned with Columbia.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#84

Post by hbrav »

Zickzack wrote: post #77
slg wrote: post #29

Collins' 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…

> Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of abandoning his crewmates to die on the moon and fly back to Earth himself. He would have died in orbit then, just a little bit closer to the rest of mankind. There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back. He was dependent on the outcome of the Lunar…

Err, this isn't correct. There would be be nothing preventing the command module from returning home in the event of the lunar lander not coming back from the moon. Though of course the command module pilot would be a bit more task-loaded.

I think you're thinking of the other way around - the LEM would have been unable to return to earth with the command and service modules. It lacked a heatshield.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#85

Post by hbrav »

shadowgovt wrote: post #48
slg wrote: post #29

Collins' 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…

Collins also spent a lot of time outside of radio comms. If something had gone wrong on the dark side of the moon, we might never have known what happened. We'd have had a perfectly cheerful conversation with the command module pilot, then a comms blackout, then nothing... With a lot of coordination, the lander crew could possibly have returned to the command module without Collins's support to find out what happened…

For the benefit of anyone who hasn't read it, his autobiography is called Carrying The Fire, and is excellent.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#86

Post by jl6 »

mbauman wrote: post #30

I've always thought the CSM commanders had the most incredible and challenging role of the three Apollo astronauts. They were undoubtedly the "most alone" humans ever — at least on a physical level. Every other hour they'd transit to the far side of the moon and would be 2200 miles (3600km) away from the nearest two humans and hundreds of thousands of miles/km away from everyone else who's ever lived. Not only that,…

What I find remarkable about that quote is that there were only three billion humans at the time. Apollo 11 wasn’t that long ago was it? And we’re already at a population more than twice that figure.

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#88

Post by mandevil »

vkou wrote: post #73
mandevil wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To compare the scientific return of robots and people, we can compare the results of the only space rock both have visited: the Moon. The six manned Apollo missions brought back much much much more scientific return than all of the contemporary robotic missions. Apollo brought back 382 kg of moon rocks. Three Soviet probes (first one, Luna 16, between Apollo 12 and 14) brought back a total of 326g. While it's a bit f…

Bear in mind that the Luna missions were done with 1960s Soviet robotics technology... And were only a side-show to their goal of a manned landing, which was hamstrung by repeated launcher problems. (And as soon as they lost the moon race, interest in this immediately dried up on the Soviet side - the sample return in the 70s was an afterthought.) If your goal is to plant a flag and ship back ~400 Kg of moon rocks, y…

Right, but the lunar science was not just limited to sample return, and here the J missions (Apollo 15-17) with their SIM bay cameras produced much better image quality than even Lunar Orbiter for much of the Moon's surface (Lunar Orbiter 5, in the polar orbit, was able to map parts of the Moon that the J missions never saw.) Similarly, the rover's traveled farther than the Lunkhod's did, showing us a much greater area of the surface. And the most sophisticated scientific instrument ever to go to the moon, even today, would be Harrison Schmitt, with his Harvard Geology Ph.D brain and hands.

As for "done with 1960's technology" so was Apollo: the ability to discover hydrogen (used to find the ice in the lunar crater shadows) wasn't possible with 1960's sensors that were light enough even for the much larger mass and power budgets of an Apollo spacecraft (vis a vis Lunar Orbiter or similar probe).

Re: Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, has died

#89

Post by iqr11 »

jhgb wrote: post #82
Zickzack wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of abandoning his crewmates to die on the moon and fly back to Earth himself. He would have died in orbit then, just a little bit closer to the rest of mankind. There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back. He was dependent on the outcome of the Lunar…

> There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back. Where did you get that idea from? This is the first time I see someone claiming something like that.

Probably from the film Apollo 13, which depicts (likely wise) hesitance to fire the SPS due to suspected damage and instead firing midcourse correction burns with the LEM descent stage while attached to the CSM. By contrast, during the otherwise normal Apollo 11, SPS was responsible for returning Collins and the CSM to Earth (TEI) whether he retrieved Armstrong and Aldrin or not. The latter case was a rehearsed abort and the stakes were known, but the maneuver was otherwise the same as a normal TEI (excluding LEM jettison, obviously). Nixon’s backup speech illustrates this, as it eulogizes those two alone; Collins would have most likely returned on his own in that horrible circumstance barring a further failure of some kind.
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