While Armstrong and Aldrin were the first to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969, it was Collins who ensured the Apollo 11 mission was a success. As the mission’s command module pilot, Collins was alone in the Columbia for more than 21 hours running system checks, recording observations, and communicating with Mission Control. When it was time to head back to Earth, Collins maneuvered the Columbia to make sure it docked safely with the lunar module Eagle with his colleagues inside.
Apollo 11 wasn’t the first time Collins had gone to space. The West Point graduate and Air Force Major General was the pilot on Gemini 10, a mission to test rendezvous and docking procedures. On that voyage, Collins became the first human to visit another spacecraft while in orbit.
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