Saturday, July 20, 2013

Apollo 11 + 44

It just occurred to me that this is the first anniversary of the lunar landing without Neil Armstrong. Meaning we'll never, ever get to do my idea of getting them all back together one last time.

For all the pictures taken from Apollo 11 go HERE. Funny moon flag bit HERE. Creepy as shit coincidence shit HERE.

Interesting bit on Michael Collins:
But he also had a singular opportunity: He became the farthest man in the Universe. When he circled the far side of the Moon, the nearest people to him were thousands of kilometers away, and ignoring them, the rest of humanity was 400,000 kilometers distant. A quarter million miles.

As for Collins, a little while back a picture circulated the ‘net (shown at the top of this post). It shows the Lunar Module carrying Aldrin and Armstrong returning to orbit, about to rendezvous with the Command Module carrying Collins.
You’ve probably seen it; I have looked at this picture countless times. But it still startled me when I saw the caption someone had dreamed up for it: “Michael Collins is the only human being, living or dead, not in the frame of this picture.”
Mind? Blown.

I read Carrying the Fire last year. Loose, fascinating read, although this little tidbit never came up, that I recall. Here's the photo:

No comments: