Apollo astronaut Michael Collins pays tribute to Parkes facilities

Apollo 11 commander reveals Australia’s ‘magnificent’ role in moon landing.

Michael Collins in the Apollo 11 training simulator. Picture: Getty Images

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins has paid tribute to the role NASA’s Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station and the CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope played in providing monitoring, tracking and television signals for the moon landing 50 years ago.

“We were very aware of Australia’s contribution at the time of Apollo 11,” Mr Collins told The Weekend Australian in an exclusive interview. “No matter which way the Earth was turned, there was a gigantic antenna pointed towards us in California, in Spain and, of course, in Australia.

“If we only had two-thirds coverage, we would not have been nearly as accurate in our trajectories when we went to and from the moon. So I thank everybody who worked to make Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes such a success. They’re complicated things to maintain and to operate, and it was beautifully and magnificently done.”

Mr Collins, 88, recalled his role piloting the command module in orbit around the moon and the dangers that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin faced in landing on the lunar surface. They put their chances of success at 50-50.

“We had one small engine valve that had to ignite to produce full thrust or Neil and Buzz were dead,” he recalled. “If that had happened, there’s nothing I could have done but come home.

“I did not have any landing gear on my craft, so I could not go down and rescue them.”

Described as the loneliest man in the universe, he had no regrets about not setting foot on the moon. “I was just delighted to be working with Neil and Buzz in any capacity and to be one-third of the combination that fulfilled John F. Kennedy’s mandate to land a man on the moon,” he said.

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Speaking to The Weekend Australian to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the republication of his memoir, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys, by Pan UK, Mr Collins remembered visiting Australia and being gifted a boomerang that symbolised humankind’s first aerodynamic object.

“I love your country, I love your people, the way you do business, the kind of things that you value, the geography, the nature, the oceans, the desert stretches, and the beautiful cities,” he said.

“Australia is very high on my list of most desirable countries on this dinky little planet.”

Mr Collins said we should not go back to the moon but “set our sights” on Mars. He encouraged private investment in a new mission to Mars. He does not see the moon as a necessary gateway or launch pad for landing on Mars.

“I think Mars is a far more interesting place than the moon and I think that our next objective should be it,” he said. “It is wonderful that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have the money and the interest. Together we can do much better, much greater things, and do them quicker and maybe even do them cheaper.”