DIED
Michael Collins
Made giant leaps for mankind
MICHAEL COLLINS BECAME FAMOUS FOR THE SIMPLE act of not walking on the moon. Collins, who died of cancer on April 28 at 90, is best remembered as Apollo 11’s command-module pilot—in some ways the unluckiest man on the luckiest mission of all time. It was Apollo 11 that, in the summer of 1969, stuck the first crewed lunar landing, taking Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin down to the surface, while Collins remained in orbit 60 miles above.
Not just an extraordinary pilot and astronaut—he went to space once before Apollo 11, aboard the 1966 Gemini 10 flight, when he became the first person to walk in space twice—Collins was also a reflective, poetic man. “A withered, sun-seared peach pit,” was how…
