Michael Collins Didn't Walk on The Moon But He Orbited It

Michael Collins, one of the three Americans on the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in July 1969, passed away of cancer on Wednesday at the age of 90.

Unlike Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Collins did not walk on the moon. After all, someone had to pilot the command module. However, he experienced the moon in a different way orbiting around its far side out of contact with NASA Mission Control. From there he could see Earth in a way no other person had ever seen it before. 

When one has such an experience nothing else one does could possibly match that exhilaration. Collins had quite the career after Apollo serving in the Nixon Administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, served as Director of the National Air and Space Museum and Undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution before venturing into the private sector. For most people those positions would be the pinnacle of their career. But for Collins his pinnacle was out of this world experiencing a rarified air that even Armstrong and Aldrin didn't know. Tonight perhaps he has returned to those skies. R.I.P.