i'm joined by michael collins who flew
on Gemini 10 and Apollo 11 thank you so
much for talking with us today thank you
delighted to be here now you were part
of the space program when really it was
in its infancy and there were a lot of
experiments going on the juror feel like
a guinea pig as you were flying around
frequently yes yes yes because of course
guinea pigs are always getting injected
and subjecting themselves to the latest
medical advances and and we had a fairly
strong but fortunately very friendly and
competent the medical component to our
training
what did we learn from that that helps
us now with long-term spaceflight well
there-there number of things many of
which I'm have just read about for
instance effects on the the blood supply
to your eye which changes a in
weightlessness course we felt stretched
out we actually were a little bit taller
because the space between your vertebrae
extends a bit these things are are are
not important at all for the kind of
work we were doing you know to the moon
and back and eight days not a medical
challenges in that but if you're talking
about several years to Mars and back
then the medical component the medical
considerations become extremely
important perhaps paramount to such a
trip
now when you were growing up did you
ever read science fiction
I did yeah I was a buck rogers and I
used to prowl around in the caverns of
mongo and
i'm quite familiar with them if you do
you think that influence you wanted to
be an astronaut
I not really my coming in to being an
astronaut was sort of a stair step
program i had an opportunity to go to
West Point which was a free education
and that was a very important
consideration and and then when i
graduated i drifted over into the air
force became a pilot one thing led to
another I was a test pilot and edwards
and and that at that time was a good
entry point to the astronaut program now
have you ever experienced failure i
applied for the second group of
astronauts and I would didn't make it
I i was at that time just a brand new
test pilot and they said yeah you don't
know enough so i was very disappointed
it was a big flop it was a big failure
and the next time I lockdown and came
into it
how did you deal with that going from
being turned down to to reapply it ain't
Pleasant the i will certainly say that
no but you try to analyze what they
liked about you what they didn't like
about you and if you could do anything
about the parts that they didn't like
will eat you gave that a lot of thought
what was your favorite part of the trip
to the moon and back saying the
parachutes open and tell me about the
importance of STEM well I am very much
in favor of science technology
engineering and math but but i think
that's a rather in complete description
of what should be steamed ste p.m. with
the emphasis on English perhaps I've
known to many inarticulate engineers in
my time but I I think
a firm background in English is
important no matter what particular
career field you're in and not even I'd
push it even one step beyond just
English into say poetry for example i
mean i like so much poetry and John
Milton comes to mind you
Paradise Lost you know it you know the
plot barely ok well--what it but the
plot was in in stem language it's a some
guy fell off a cliff and maybe God
pushed him in steam it is you know what
isn't steam him the almighty power
hurled headlong flaming from the
ethereal heights with hideous road and
combustion down to bottomless perdition
there to dwell and out of 19 chains and
Pinot fire hooters 25 the omnipotent
arms so see I like the like the second
version better than I do the first
version but that's just my that was my
story that's my anecdote anyway
well thank you so much for talking with
us thank you
hi i'm beth wilson i'm one of the hosts
of 730 a TV show produced here at the
National Air and Space Museum today I am
joined by Apollo 11 astronaut michael
collins thank you so much for being here
today the thank you so much for having
me
now you flew the command module by
yourself around the far side of the Moon
where there was no communication was
that isolating know it was a wonderful
experience and it was nice in a way that
you might not expect but the fact that
it was quiet silent utterly was good not
bad and gave me a little time off from
Mission Control telling me this that and
the other so I i enjoyed the time by
myself
how long was that break around the
backside 55 minutes maybe something like
that
full hour of quiet close to it yeah
yourself now I understand you have taken
up painting
yes I do a lot of watercolor painting
these days and i enjoyed it's a nice
hobby and you know you don't need a tee
off time or a lot of equipment it's
something that the more you delve into
the more you realize you don't know very
much about how to go about it and that
it's fast and it's kind of like feeling
the leaves off an artichoke
oh look at that one down there I never
thought about that before and and so on
and you'd like to spend a lot of time
outdoors because I've seen some of your
paintings and you like to do a lot of
the the nature paintings i guess it's
another quiet time for you
well I do official on and I try to do
one sprint triathlon a year so that
keeps me you know run bike swim and I
can't do those things in North I
although i might try come to think of it
that would be a little easier
was there anything that you learned
while you were training on earth that
really did prepare you for the the
Apollo missions know everything I
learned you know you bring to a flight
30 years of living on this dinky little
planet and whatever you've been
able to put together and try to retain
all that I think goes into the
preparation for a flight
thank you so much for joining us today
thank you it's been very nice chatting
with you
I heard about the only person
and it doesn't have TV coverage of the
things and that man got the black up now
and you're gonna be the side
getting a TV picture never-fail yes we
are getting a TV picture trillion out
one all
great