Carrying the Fire

"That’s exactly why I was fascinated. Pretty much everyone on the planet knows Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but not Michael Collins. His job was to fly up and then, when the other two went in the landing capsule down to the Moon, he had to stay in the command module until they came back. While the other two were on the Moon, he orbited around it. He was the loneliest human in history, round the dark side of the Moon on his own. It’s extraordinary. He also knew that if anything went wrong with the landing craft—which it was very, very likely that it would—he would have to press the go-back-to-Earth-on-my-own button and leave his two friends on the Moon to die. “He was the loneliest human in history, round the dark side of the Moon on his own” What initially captivated me about Michael Collins is the way he says, ‘I’d be lying if I said that I had the best seat in the spaceship. Of course I’d have liked to go to the Moon, but wow, what a privilege it was to do what I did. I had an incredible experience.’ Whereas Buzz Aldrin has spent the last 50 years of his life being more angry about being second on the Moon than happy about going to the Moon. I really enjoyed all the training, build-up side of things as well—and the human side of the book. It’s such a rocket science-type endeavour, but Michael Collins seems like a really nice guy. He manages to tell the story of this incredible effort by elite people in a way that’s quite relatable and interesting. Another great book is Moondust by Andrew Smith. He does his best to interview all 12 people who have been to the Moon. I really enjoyed that book as well."

"Carrying the Fire is widely regarded as the best of the memoirs written by astronauts. Mike Collins was the co-pilot on one of the two-man Gemini missions in 1966. He went on to be the command-module pilot on Apollo 11. He was the astronaut that stayed in lunar orbit while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. Readers really get their money’s worth with Mike because his book is readable, personal, poignant and funny. It sets the bar for astronaut books. Those of us who grew up during the space age were fortunate to have witnessed the opening act in a drama which is continuing to unfold. Political forces created the space programme. The Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union is the reason why we had the tremendous acceleration in the space programme in the 1960s, and why we got humans to the moon before the end of that decade. But once that goal was achieved, that political rationale evaporated. All of us so-called space cadets have been left with unfulfilled dreams of the unused potential, that we still have, to become a space-faring civilisation. The most futuristic thing that we’ve ever done took place more than 40 years ago. But, as I say, this is a drama that is still unfolding."