Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut - BBC HARDtalk

welcome to hard talk I'm Stephen Sacko this year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most remarkable feats of exploration in the history of humankind the Apollo 11 mission which landed men on the moon I'm in Florida to meet one of the crew members while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was setting foot on the moon surface Michael Collins was piloting the command module which got them all home so 50 years on how does he reflect on the significance of that extraordinary mission [Music] [Music] Michael Collins welcome to hard talk thank you very much Steven this year marks the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 11 mission which you were a key part of it means the spotlight is back on that mission it's back on you how do you feel about that there were three of us of course on that flight Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin and and I three very lucky people Neil Armstrong was born in 1930 Buzz Aldrin 1930 Mike Collins 1933 quite different people Neil Armstrong didn't like the spotlight Buzz Aldrin does like to spotlight my count doesn't like with all due respect sir my college doesn't like the spotlight either and yet here we are and we're going to talk about what happened in 1969 do you talk about it with the an enduring sense of pride oh very much so I mean I was I was very proud of the job that the three of us did getting us to and from the moon that trip is a very long and fragile daisy chain and the links are very fragile and and we were able to keep them all intact do our jobs properly but more than the three of us there were almost 400,000 Americans working on project Apollo and and I thank them they're the ones who don't get recognized I want to take you back actually quite some time before the mission before those amazing pictures of the footsteps on the moon I want to take you back to John F Kennedy pledging to invest whatever it took to get American man on to the moon in 1961 I guess and within the decade he said we will make it happen absolutely did you at the time when he said that did you think that's me I am gonna do whatever I can to be part of that no I did not when John F Kennedy made that famous speech amande on the moon by the end of the decade I was struggling with the equations of motion and the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base and the notion of flying to the moon was far beyond my Ken once I did join the space program and become part of Apollo as the months went by I thanked John F Kennedy more and more because the stark simplicity of his mandate was wonderful for us we we could quote John Kennedy and we could get things done we could accelerate people we tell people we've got to have this by day after tomorrow the Kennedy mandate the simplicity of it the stark beauty of it really helped us along to the moon did you feel that you were part of some sort of Cold War contest because we shouldn't forget that Kennedy's commitment was in part at least driven by a preoccupation with what the Soviets were doing and the sense that the Soviets may be getting ahead of America in the space race this was America's determination to fight bagged it did you feel like a cold warrior in a sense yes a little bit we of course were acutely aware of the USSR we knew that we were in a competition with them but somehow that was behind a scrim behind a screen it wasn't part of our day-to-day life I didn't feel like an active competitor my problems were American problems trying to get American problem solved and although we knew we were in this competition we are at least my consciousness was 99 percent taken with non Soviet affairs or status you were picked ultimately for the Apollo 11 mission alongside as you say Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin you then spent time training with them you did the mission with them it was a feat of enormous ambition and daring and I just wonder what sort of bonds you forged with those two men Armstrong and Aldrin we formed some some very strong bonds but actually not really during the flight of Apollo 11 or even during the preparatory flight of the flight it was an around-the-world trip that we took after the flight when I I came to know Neil better during our training in the first place we had we had not been a backup crew as most primary crews had been so we just got to know each other in the six months before the flight which is a short period of time further we were split by by function Neil and Buzz were primarily off doing lunar module training I was usually by myself doing command module training so I somewhere along the line described us as amiable strangers I didn't didn't mean that in a derogatory way but when we were very hardworking when the day was over we we didn't party we didn't drive color-coordinated Corvettes or any of that kind of thing we wear our noses which to the grindstone we had both come off the Germany program so we did have some experience in space Germany program was a fascinating but a much smaller program and it had more of a local appeal or inner feeling about it almost perhaps like an athletic contest of some sort Paolo 11 on the other hand was heavy duty big business we felt the weight of the world on our shoulders we were being looked at and examined minutely we were under a tight time table time schedule and amiable strangers we were we were in a sense but there's something intensely human about the that the roles you had because armstrong and aldrin as you say were committed to the the landing they were in the lunar module and they were going to be the guys let us be honest who were gonna get the glory of making those footsteps on the moon you were integral to the mission but you were piloting the command module you were absolutely crucial to getting them onto the moon and getting them off the moon and back home but you were not there and it seems to me it takes a particular kind of man to be committed to the mission and you accept that you're not gonna get the ultimate glory did you see it that way well no I certain certainly thought that I did not have the best seat of the three on Apollo 11 but I can say in all honesty I was thrilled with the seat that I did have I knew that I had somehow lucked into being one third of the team that was going to do this wonderful thing and and my function suited me fine I I mean yeah sure I would have preferred to walk on the moon but that really seemed trivial distinction at the time I was very pleased with the my responsibilities on the flight people have said that yours actually was the loneliest job that a human being could ever have because while they went off the two of them together in the module to make that landing you were orbiting the moon in the command module and for a substantial chunk of every orbit you were completely isolated from all of humankind because you were on the far side the moon out of all contact with humanity no human being has ever been more isolated than you were so what so what did you make of that experience what kind of impact did it have upon you well I when I returned to Earth I was amazed because most of the questions to me from the press center gun you were the loneliest man and the whole lonely orbit around the lonely planet on a lonely evening and I felt on the other hand quite comfortable in my happy little home inside the command module Columbia I had been flying airplanes by myself for a number of years so the fact I was aloft by myself was not anything new I was very comfortable and yet there was an awful responsibility on your shoulders because that you were the guy who had to make sure that Aldrin and Armstrong got back to the spacecraft that was going to get you all home and you didn't know whether the lunar module would really work when it left the moon's surface you didn't know if Armstrong and Aldrin would make it back to you and I just wonder if in your mind you had a plan for what you'd do if things went wrong well first you you've hit upon the the part of the flight that I worried about the most which I thought that the Neil and Buzz would go on down and have a successful landing and a lot of our equipment was duplicated but when it came to their return to me they had one engine one engine Bell one combustion chamber and that had to work perfectly to lift them up back to my orbit I had around my neck an 8 by 10 notebook which had in a 18 different possibilities for how we would bring those two vehicles back together if everything went according to textbook it was fairly simple and something that we had practiced over and over and the simulator if you ever think what it would mean for you if you'd had to return to earth without them yeah sure I did but only in the most abbreviated form I mean the first I was not going to commit suicide I was coming home by myself and I would be a mark man for the rest of my life I knew that and I didn't dwell on that but I was I was quite aware of the of that fact did you as other astronauts have discussed and of course back in 1969 there were very few men who'd had the experience that you were having of seeing our blue planet from space did you find it changed your view of humanity of our place in the universe yes I believe it did if there's any part of the flight of Apollo 11 that sticks in my memory it is the memory of a little tiny thing that you can obscure with your thumbnail blue and white the white of the clouds of blue of the ocean just a trace of land gorgeous very shiny bright back ground totally black yeah I I will remember that all my life and it leads one to consider well is it so pretty is it so quiet is it so pristine for some reason the word fragile came up out of the murk somehow I know not how but I thought god it's a fragile little thing isn't it and well in the 50 years since you had that special view of our planet do you think we human beings have respected and understood that fragility no no I don't think so when we flew to the moon the population of the earth was about 2 billion and it's sneaking up now on 8 billion and and that growth is willy-nilly without any consideration for the support that additional number of people requires from the resources of the earth no I don't think we ever consider that let me ask you if I may a personal question about that return to Earth you were perhaps at that time in 1969 the three most famous men on the planet you had achieved something which men had dreamed about mankind had dreamed about for so long and you had delivered it and yet afterwards it cannot have been easy to handle both the adulation and the intense focus and spotlight upon you Buzz Aldrin has been open about the difficulties he had in coming to terms with it he said I'd been to the moon I had traveled around but what on earth was I going to do next did you have a feeling like that - not really I bailed out of the space program before Apollo was over I felt that the first lunar landing had fundamentally done what John F Kennedy had asked us to do I went on to other jobs I'd be next first I was assistant secretary of state later I was director of the National Air and Space Museum let me interrupt because both of those extremely important jobs with a great deal of responsibility but if you had stayed I think most people who know NASA will think there's little doubt that you could have commanded your own Apollo mission you may well have stood a chance in the years that came to have walked on the moon yourself and you walked away from that possibility why Oh a whole host of reasons some of them professionals some of them personal I think the personal ones at that time probably weighed more heavily on me than the professional ones my wife Pat had you know put up with my ridiculous career being a jet fighter pilot a test pilot this loony astronaut thing whatever it was and and that required long hours a lot of time away from home and the time away from home frequently was you were stuffed into a simulator and I was sick and tired of being stuffed into a simulator and I felt that I had held my end of the bargain with NASA I didn't feel like I owed NASA anything nor did they owe me anything but any regrets at all did not pursue that oh sure sure but but you know I my luck had endured and this was time for it to end and yeah sure but did I look back when when when Gene Cernan my good good friend Gene Cernan stepped out onto the lunar surface did I feel a sense of the green anything that could have been me maybe thought that but I wasn't you know green with envy or anything like that it was not a strong feeling no I made my decision I was happy with my decision I had a I was I was now living in Washington DC with a decent job my wife my family situation was good so I had no cost for for any great regret as you say you for for a while where director of the Air and Space Museum you stayed very closely tied to the the world of space exploration you've watched NASA at close quarters do you think after the Apollo program was wound up do you think NASA in a sense lost its way that for all of the development of the space shuttle those endless missions to the space station Space Lab they seem to lose momentum with the notion of pushing forward with manned exploration I think that they made a big mistake I don't think NASA lost its way so much as NASA lost its money and there's there's an important distinction there I think NASA sort of wobbled along and weren't quite sure what you did after Apollo they did they did a Space Station an abbreviated form of one and then they created the shuttle I think those were important and useful steps they were not as dramatic they didn't excite the American people an interest in the space program decreased but I think that was perhaps inevitable after Apollo was over let's talk about Mars you have always been a passionate advocate of the need for humans to push a mission to Mars but there are so many challenges involved in a Mars mission it would take so long at least two years do you see a commitment not least amongst America's politicians to invest what it would need to get human beings to Mars the the financing of space ventures has changed somewhat in that it's not only a taxed government project Mars but some private money is being thrown in by people such as Elon Musk are you comfortable with that with the notion that America's richest billionaires and you mentioned it on must we could talk about Jeff Bezos as well are you comfortable with a with a sort of climate in space exploration where they seem more committed to pushing the boundaries the frontiers than the US government no well I think the US government should welcome their money ensure if they want to throw in billion here and a trillion there will bless them III don't see that there's anything wrong with having once you're in a spacecraft you're not sure who paid for the thing that you're up and the fact is that you're there then they're adding to the possible reality of a trip to Mars a little bit sooner than if you relied solely upon appropriated funds isn't the truth though that if we the human species are serious about the next phase of space exploration which will be mind-bogglingly expensive and technically extraordinarily challenging it can really only happen if there is cooperation between all of the biggest powers that is the United States China and Russia I think we have to find a way to cooperate I remember so vividly the trip that the three of us took after the flight of Apollo 11 and we were surprised that everywhere we went every city we visit we were not greeted with oh well you Americans finally did it we were greeted with we did it we humanity we human beings have put ourselves our challenge together and we have done it and I think that we have to build on that spirit which was ephemeral but Xi Jinping the president of China not so long ago talked about China's space dream we saw just a few months ago the Chinese with the remarkably detailed technical achievement putting a rover on the other side of the Moon something that hadn't been done before I mean that there are people in Washington DC extremely nervous about Chinese intentions in space do you think they've got a point well it the Chinese I think certainly poses a problem I think the fact that they landed on the backside of the Moon is is not an extraordinary technological achievement but some of the things that they may learn there will be extraordinary some of the some of the minerals for example it can be mined from the backside and brought back or it will be very very valuable and and and I think so we we in the United States have to worry more about China as a competitor how we overcome that I don't know I I don't think we do it by increased tariffs I think we have to somehow get the Chinese and this and the Russians who inhabit this little tiny fragile planet to join with us in friendly not hostile space ventures and when history books come to be written maybe centuries from now when we look back at the arc of human achievement over a very long time span where do you think landing on the moon putting men on the moon and seeing them walk the moon will sit in terms of milestones achieved by our species I think two flights were very important Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 Apollo 8 which didn't land on the moon but was the first human vehicle to exceed escape velocity was very important perhaps as important as Apollo 11 Apollo 8 was about a leap was it was about leaving Apollo 11 was about arriving hundred years from now I'm not sure which historians would be prevalent in an argument whether it's more important that we left or more important that we arrived I think both of those were monumental achievements and they will be remembered as we proceed toward what I hope is Mars and if we can do we can leave for one and arrive one another I think we can do the same thing although I may contradict myself and say that the first flight to Mars may be intentionally a one-way flight so believing only and not leaving and arriving Michael Ince I thank you very much for being on hot dogs been a pleasure talking to you thank you thank you Steven BBC's my favorite [Music] you [Music]

Channel: BBC HARDtalk

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Keywords: BBC Hardtalk, Stephen Sackur, politics, interview BBC, Apollo 11, Michael Collins, Moon, Moon landing, NASA

Id: e3ydGj00pKk

Length: 24min 40sec (1480 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 25 2019