Carrying the Fire

Without a doubt, this is by far best book I've read about the space program. Collins was uniquely positioned to write such a singularly important book, being the closest eye-witness to one of humanity's towering achievements. Not participating directly in the landing, but listening to it from orbit 60 miles above the surface of the Moon, gives him an enhanced perspective, detached yet supremely interested, as evidenced by his futile attempts to locate his crewmates via his ship's sextant. This perspective, along with Collins's predispositions, yields fertile ground from which to reap rich meaning and context, commodities perhaps hard to come by for test pilots who have been trained to operate complex machines and collect raw data. Among his Apollo 11 crew, Collins represents a sort of middle ground between cool and reserved Neil Armstrong and hot and flamboyant Buzz Aldrin, possessing personality traits that served him well while flying solo in Columbia, and while writing this book. By this I mean that Collins offers the reader a balanced combination of technical information regarding his flights and those of his colleagues, and honest discussions of what all of this meant to him personally. After all, we send humans in space not only to collect data, but to hear their stories.

Project Gemini is often overlooked due to its position between the firsts of Mercury and the Moon landings. In some ways it's my favorite phase of the early space program though, as it represents, and indeed contains, much of the journey, the trial-and-error figuring out of basic yet complicated problems such as "how do you bring two spacecraft together in orbit?" and "how do you get around outside your spacecraft?" and "how long can astronauts live in space anyway?" Or indeed, "how do you put crews together?" These are things that were top-line prerequisites for going to the Moon. Collins flew on Gemini 10 with another legend, John Young, and performed one of the hairiest spacewalks in the program. The chapters covering Gemini are standouts in this superb book.

As mentioned earlier, Collins doesn't hesitate to personalize his narrative, to describe frankly his point-of-view and give his opinions on space exploration, politics, conservation, or less serious matters, all the while relating to the reader in a very personal way. This, along with his unique perspective and excellent writing style, makes Carrying the Fire a perennial essential read.

I carried the fire for six years, and now I would like to tell you about it, simply and directly as a test pilot must, for the trip deserves the telling.

This was a really good book. Little altlovesbooks wanted to be an astronaut so badly as a kid, until my dad told me I had to join the Air Force. Then I wanted to be an astronomer, but mid-grade altlovesbooks was only passable at math and physics. Adult altlovesbooks now just stares up at the sky and wonders what it's like to be up there and watches SpaceX launches on YouTube. Not quite the same thing, but I'll take what I can get.

Michael Collins, the "third man" of Apollo 11 who stayed behind while the other two astronaut rock stars walked around on the moon, is a talented, engaging writer. He has this sense of pragmatism about him that really made reading about his early days trying to get into the space program, the training once getting in, and the rigors of spaceflight extremely compelling. He's also got a nice way of breaking down complex concepts into easy to understand passages, which is especially nice when talking about something as complex as spaceflight. He's also funny, has a nice, dry humor, and seems really adept at summing up the people and personalities around him. I especially liked the segment, almost an epilogue of sorts, after regaling us about Apollo 11. He goes into detail about where they all ended up and why, about his thoughts on the past and future of the space program, and a general sense of his hopes and wishes for mankind going forward. It was funny, moving, philosophical, and something that's relatable.

This made my favorites of 2020 list, and I'm really glad I spent some time reading it. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator was extremely easy to listen to. Highly recommend to anyone and everyone.