Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (Adventure Library) [Hardcover]

Michael Collins (Author)

Book Description

Series: Adventure Library | Publication Date: November 1, 1998

In 1969, Michael Collins went to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the historic Apollo 11 flight. When he came back, he wrote the finest account we have of the training and the experiences of a test pilot and astronaut. This is the story of one of the great adventures of this century.

First published in 1974
New epilogue by the author
Drawings, color and b&w photos

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Collins tells what his space journeys meant to him as a human being [and] discusses the role of man amid the multitudinous mechanical marvels . . . Profoundly affecting.” —The New Yorker

“Michael Collins can write . . . No other person who has flown in space has captured the experience so vividly.” —Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr., The New York Times Book Review

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Michael Collins flew in both the Gemini 10 and Apollo 11 space missions in the 1960s. He currently lives in South Florida.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 422 pages
• Publisher: Adventure Library (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885283148
• ISBN-13: 978-1885283146
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,248,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book - Tells What it Was Like, August 3, 2000

By 

John D'angelo (Westchester County, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (Adventure Library) (Hardcover)

I found this book by referral from other's reviews of lesser astronaut books. Several reviews said, in effect, "don't read this book but find yourself a copy of Carrying the Fire." So I did and now I know what they meant.

Michael Collins was the third astronaut on the famous Apollo 11 flight that landed on the moon in July, 1969. Unfortunately, because he wasn't one of the two in the Lunar Module, he isn't often mentioned. He stayed in lunar orbit as the Command Module Pilot. This book is Collins' telling of what it was like to be an astronaut, both in the Gemini and Apollo programs. He talks about the astronaut selection process, and what it was like to go through it. And he tells the story - from a very personal perspective, of what it was like, what he felt, what he worried about, what angered him, and well...you get the idea - of preparing for and flying a Gemini and Apollo mission.

Because this is his story, and his first person telling of the story, there isn't really anything here about the lunar landing itself. Rather, he talks about what he was doing when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed and walked on the moon.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It often made me laugh out loud and I certainly believe that I now know how Collins felt during his tenure as one of America's Astronauts. I found the book both well-written and engaging. I also found, to my surprise, that this is a humble, revealing and candid story. Highly recommended if you are interested in the genre.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Question About It--The Best Astronaut Memoir Ever!, April 30, 2004

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (Paperback)

There have been several excellent Apollo astronaut memoirs, especially Gene Cernan's "The Last Man on the Moon" and Jim Lovell's "Lost Moon," which was made into the feature film "Apollo 13." This one is still the most honest and reflective of them all. It extends a tradition of the aviator as litterateur into the age of space travel.

Collins had an illustrious career as an astronaut. Chosen in the third group of astronauts in 1963, he served as backup pilot for Gemini VII, pilot for Gemini X, and command module pilot for Apollo 11. On that last mission he became the loneliest man in the universe when his two crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, landed on the Moon while he remained in orbit around the Moon in the Command Module. In "Carrying the Fire" Collins writes of his solitude in lunar orbit in July 1969. As he disappeared on the backside of the Moon from Earth, he recalled, "I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life, I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God only knows what on this side. I feel this powerfully-not as fear or loneliness-but as awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation. I like the feeling. Outside my window I can see stars-and that is all. Where I know the moon to be, there is simply a black void, the moon's presence is defined solely by the absence of stars." He compared it to being in a skiff in the middle of the ocean with only the stars above and black water below. It proved a profoundly moving experience for him.

Michael Collins left NASA in 1970 and became the first director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, continuing to write eloquently of the possibilities of spaceflight. Among other works he published "Liftoff: The Story of America's Adventure in Space" (1988) and "Mission to Mars" (1990), a powerful exposition on the value of a human mission to Mars.

"Carrying the Fire" is the first candid book about life as an astronaut. The author comments on other astronauts, describes the seemingly endless preparations for flights to the Moon, and assesses the results. He also describes what he thinks of as the most important perspective that emerged from his flight, a realization of the fragility of the Earth. He wrote that "from space there is no hint of ruggedness to it; smooth as a billiard ball, it seems delicately poised on its circular journey around the Sun, and above all it seems fragile...Is the sea water clean enough to pour over your head, or is there a glaze of oil on its surface?...Is the riverbank a delight or an obscenity? The difference between a blue-and-white planet and a black-and-brown one is delicate indeed."

It is a powerful and moving memoir. Read it more than once and lend copies to your friends. You, and they, will not be disappointed.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational, 20 years on, March 27, 2000

By 

Vaughn Davis (Auckland New Zealand) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (Adventure Library) (Hardcover)

I admit it, I took this book out from the school library when I was 12 and still have it 20 years later. Even at five cents a week, the overdue fees are not worth thinking about. As a schoolkid in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, not many of us dreamed we could ever be astronauts. After reading this book, I did. It didn't matter that by the early 1980s when I read Carrying the Fire there was no manned space programme to speak of. It didn't much matter that I didn't become an astronaut, just a military pilot.

What matters is that Colins's story touched, inspired and motivated me to believe I could do anything I put my mind to, and showed that there's more to success than glory, adulation or being the one kids can remember in history quizzes.

Good on you, Michael Collins. You're an inspiration. All you Amazonians out there who've leapt onto the space history band-chariot since Apollo 13/Earth to the Moon, take note. This is where it started. Find a copy and read it (just don't bother trying to get one from the Hutt Valley High School Library - it's out on loan right now.)