They happened to rendezvous with Columbia on the far side of the Moon where Collins had spent a lonely 48 minutes out of every lunar orbit, with the satellite's bulk between them and the rest of humanity. He recorded, "I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life and I know it."īut - thanks in part to an hour or so of pulling unnecessary items, from urine bags to armrests to used scientific gear, out of the landing module and tossing them into a pile adjacent to the landing site - Armstrong and Aldrin's spacecraft lifted them safely off the lunar surface and into orbit. He passed the time by recording notes on a tape recorder, including this one, from shortly before Eagle was due to blast off from the Moon: "My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone now am within minutes of finding out the truth of the matter." So was everyone else on Earth, and NASA had prepared itself for a tragic contingency President Nixon had a prepared speech to read in the event that the Eagle's ascent failed.Ĭollins, too, had contemplated what life would be like if he returned to Earth alone, leaving his crewmates dead or, worse, doomed to wait for their air to run out on the Moon. Privately, the astronauts estimated the odds at around 50/50, but they went anyway.Īs the lunar module separated from Columbia and began the descent to the Moon, Collins radioed his crewmates, "Keep talking to me, guys." But a few minutes later, Columbia's orbit carried Collins around the curve of the Moon, out of radio contact with Armstrong, Aldrin, and every other human being in the universe, for the next 48 minutes.įor the next 21.5 hours, all Collins could do was watch and wait. The module's ascent engine had never been tested on Moon, and Armstrong and Aldrin were taking a calculated gamble that the engine would fire at all, let alone burn long enough to get out of the Moon's gravity well and rendezvous with Columbia.
No one was certain that Eagle, the lunar landing module, would actually make it off the lunar surface. The experience seems to have been more inspiring and exhilarating than frightening.īut for most of the 21.5 hours while he waited alone, circling the rocky sphere of the Moon, Collins worried about whether his crewmates would return. Collins said afterward that he didn't feel lonely during those moments.
#BUZZ ALDRIN MOON SECRETS PLUS#
"If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the Moon, and one plus God-knows-what on this side," he recorded. During those solo orbits, Columbia's pilot experienced periods of the most profound solitude any human being has ever known: 48 minutes at a time alone on the far side of the Moon, with no radio contact with Earth or his crewmates and a 2100 mile-wide ball of rock between him and every other human who ever lived. There was also the possibility of an in-space collision and the subsequent decompression of our cabin, so we were still in our spacesuits as Mike separated us from the Saturn third stage," Aldrin recalled later.Īnd a few days later, while Armstrong and Aldrin took small steps and giant leaps down on the lunar surface, Collins orbited the Moon alone in Columbia, for 21.5 hours. If the separation and docking did not work, we would return to Earth. "This of course was a critical maneuver in the flight plan.
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