A month before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, Michael Collins shared a previously unreleased photo from the historic mission.
TBT Photo With Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin
On Twitter, the former NASA astronaut posted the photo of the Apollo 11 crew in uniform and standing beside a replica of the Moon.
"The crew," he wrote on the social media platform. "Found this at the bottom of a box. Don't think it was ever used by @NASA #TBT."
At some point, the 88-year-old also signed the photo.
Collins served as the Command Module pilot during Apollo 11. While his colleagues, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, landed and walked on the lunar surface, Collins stayed in orbit.
After spending some time on the lunar surface, Armstrong and Aldrin rejoined Collins to journey back to Earth.
Orlando Sentinel, which will be publishing a commemorative book full of photos from the 1969 mission, commented that its staff members have not seen the photo that Collins recently shared.
The response to Collins' tweet was overwhelmingly positive. Many recalled watching the event on their television screens as children. One Twitter user joked that Collins, the only one of the three who did not get to walk on the lunar surface, was seemed to be making a statement.
"So I'm the only guy not going to touch the Moon on the actual mission, eh? I'm touching it now!" — Frank Gruber (@FrankJayGruber) June 13, 2019
Michael Collins Recalls Apollo 11
In a recent interview with CNN, Collins said that while he never got to land on the Moon, he felt privileged to be part of the mission. He said that his regret was for his colleagues could not be there including his friend, Apollo 1 astronaut Charlie Bassett who died in a plane crash.
He also recalled the experience of looking back to Earth while flying around the moon.
"I said 'hey, Houston, I've got the world in my window,'" he recounted. "And the world is about the size of your thumbnail if you hold it out arm's length in front of you. The whole focus of your attention goes into this little thing out there. It's in a black void, which makes its colors even more impressive. Primarily, you get the blue of the oceans, the white of the clouds, you get a little streak of tan that we call continents, but they're not that noticeable. It just looks glorious."
Collins was also part of Gemini 10 crew with John Young.
