The Loneliest Man in the Universe
You definitely know who Neil Armstrong is, and you’ve probably heard of Buzz Aldrin, too. I doubt, however, you can name the third man on that famous moon mission in 1969. I sure couldn’t, at the Lion’s Head bar trivia last Tuesday night.
Enter Major General Michael Collins: The third astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission.
You see, the reason you and I didn’t know who he is is simple: he never set foot on the moon that fateful day. Instead, his job, essentially, was to drop Neil & Buzz off then fly Command Module Columbia around the moon, using the big ol’ space rock’s orbit to slingshot the craft back toward Earth (obviously after picking the other guys up from the surface).
Michael Collins was alone, driving around the moon’s orbit, for an entire day. It’s a drive so long that you’d forget that you’re driving. It’s long enough for your mind to go over long-settled arguments in your head (updated with you winning them somehow), or wonder what that old crush of yours is up to these days, or think about what you should masturbate to that night.
Michael Collins: The first man to space out, in space.
All it would have taken was a jerk of the wheel (or joystick, however spaceships do it), and instead of slingshoting around the moon, he would careen off into the depths of space and go anywhere he wanted to go, in the entire universe. They wouldn’t even know he’d done it- no signal of any kind could reach him back there. Michael Collins was more alone, and further out, than anyone had ever been in the history of mankind.
Michael Collins: The first man to take a joyride in space.
Who cares about the guys who rang off a garbled one liner over a space radio then planted a flag you’ve seen a billion times on some grey rock you hardly ever think about- you dweebs ever heard of Michael Collins: The man who Tokyo Drifted around the dark side of the moon?
Though he’d never admit it, Michael Collins is probably the first guy to crank it in space. Think about it, there’s no way Buzz or Neil could have done it without the other taking notice- “Hey Buzz, I think I see something behind that big moon rock! I’ll go check it out while you guard the flag,” then, what, somehow Neil would fiddle his arm out from the spacesuit’s sleeve, leave it floating up like he’s always waving and unzip his space diaper to- No!
Michael Collins had 48 minutes of the most perfect solitude to have ever been attained by a human being. He peered out his windshield and gazed into the literal abyss that is the cosmos- burning quasars, shining constellations, majestic galaxies of shapes and colours hitherto unseen by the eyes of Man- and in the space between it all, more ‘nothing’ than could ever have been conceived by some up-jumped Earth monkey’s think-lump.
I am convinced he rubbed one out.
