Early this morning, in 1969, two men walked on the moon. Naturally, much of the attention has focused on those two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and the extraordinary experience they had. But the one that interests me the most is the man who stayed behind, as they drifted down in the lunar lander. As Michael Collins meanwhile slipped behind the moon in the command module, he was famously, and poetically, described by Nasa as ‘the man most alone since Adam.’ For forty-eight minutes of each orbit Collins was completely alone and out of all contact. I try to imagine what it would feel like but what would I do? How would I react? In his autobiography, Collins says that his strongest feelings were of ‘awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation’. When people talk about a Zen state of relaxation perhaps this is what they mean. By the way, have people suddenly suffered an attack of good taste? Why have there been no linkages between the anniversary of the first lunar landing and the late Michael Jackson’s moon walk? Or maybe there have been and I haven’t seen them. If not, I am disappointed in the bad taste brigade.
Leave a Reply