Today, the flags of the United States and NASA fly at half staff in commemoration of the life of Major General Michael Collins, the command module pilot of the Apollo 11 mission. General Collins was selected in NASA’s third group of astronauts in 1963. Prior to Apollo 11, he flew on the Gemini 10 mission with John Young.
On the Apollo 11 mission, General Collins served as the command module pilot, meaning he stayed in orbit around the moon in the command module Columbia while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in the lunar module Eagle. When he was on the back side of the moon, he was out of communication with Earth.
After retiring from NASA in 1970, Collins took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later, he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum, and held this position until 1978, when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980, he took a job as vice president of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own consulting firm. Along with his Apollo 11 crewmates, Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011.
Godspeed, General Collins!
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