Particularly when you compare him to the engineers who designed that engine that, the very first time it was fired on the surface of the moon, worked and brought the astronauts home instead of marooning them to listen to Walter Cronkite narrate their obituaries on national television.
Yikes.
Except in certain special cases, engineering is not actually a job for rock stars. When you succeed, the projects usually get the glory, not you. From the article, it sounds like Collins understands that perfectly well.
Mike Collins has a marketing problem: his name's too boring. He should have immediately commissioned someone to name a Tom Collins derivative drink after him when he got back from the mission.
I mean, seriously, you go and do a job with two guys named Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. And you wonder why people forget your name.
I agree with you that Mike Collins is not forgotten.
Wouldn't it be interesting to know what proportion of the population can name all three astronauts on Apollo 11, both of those that walked on the Moon, which it was that was first, or none.
But then again, how many here on HN can name all twelve who walked on the Moon? Does it matter who they were? They were, after all, as Neil Armstrong says, just the most visible of the half million people who made it possible.
In my childhood nerd days I could name all the apollo crews and CM/LM names and could name all the gemini and mercury astronauts (could never keep the gemini missions/pairs straight though.) It did not win me many friends or bar bets but it was time well spent IMHO. For some reason I never managed to get excited about or care very much about missions once Cernan's foot left the surface of the moon (except for Deke Slayton finally getting his shot on the Apollo-Soyuz mission.)
The Institution of Engineering and Technology in the UK did a survey recently but they seemingly haven't published the full results though they do mention they might provide them on request.
Some of the stats are a little discouraging though
Agreed. THe real forgotten Astronaut of Apollo 11 would be Charles Moss Duke - the CapCom that was on duty when Eagle landed (and surely must be considered lynch pin to the whole landing)
