Michael Collins, the American astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission, has died

A command and service unit pilot, he was in orbit, and fellow missionaries Neil Armstrong and Bus Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon.

In its statement, the astronaut’s family “wants to remember his quick wit, his sense of quiet duty and the wisdom he gained by looking at the earth from space and observing the calm waters. From his fishing boat”.

Despite his great age, Michael Collins has been very active in Apollo’s warriors in recent years and is very poetic when recalling his memories of the moon.

“When we got out and looked at it, oh, what a huge sphere,” he described in Washington in 2019. “The sun was behind her, so she shone through a golden circle, which changed the grooves very differently, due to the difference between whites ‘whites and blacks’ blacks.”

“It was amazing and interesting, nothing compared to what we saw through the other window,” he continued. “At the end of your hand was a thumb-sized pea, a pretty little thing in black velvet from the rest of the universe.”

“I said to the control center, ‘Houston, I see the world through my window.’

Only member of a mission that did not take place on the moon

Born to a diplomatic father in Rome on October 31, 1930, Michael Collins became a test pilot for the U.S. Army.

In the 1960s, he amassed many hours of flight in space, especially during Gemini missions.

The only member of the Apollo 11 crew says the earth did not walk on the satellite and he did not retain any bitterness.

Like Aldrin and Armstrong, Collins left NASA after a successful return to Earth and pursued a rich public life.

Appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs by President Richard Nixon, who later built the Washington Air Museum and assumed the presidency (1971-1978).

He later became a consultant and wrote books on space adventure.