On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission that would take the first men to the moon started. The thing was so followed and then told that in this Almanac there is very little to add to what you already know. But since we are trying to focus here on the Italian anecdotes of innovation, I will only mention this. There were three astronauts as it is known: Neil Armstrong, the one who took the “first step”; Buzz Aldrin, who never got over his sorrow for taking the second step; and Michael Collins who while the two were walking on the satellite, crowning the mission’s objective and entering history, had remained aboard the Columbia spacecraft, in flight, because someone had to do it if they wanted to go home.
To be precise, in the historic moments when the world followed the other two planting the American flag on the lunar soil, he was in orbit on the other side of the moon, for about forty minutes even without a radio link, and therefore in the dark. all. Regrets? Nobody. He will say, ” I am honored to have had that position. I did not feel alone and abandoned, but part of what was happening on the lunar surface. There were three seats, so my presence was as necessary as that of the other two ‘. A rare example of modesty.
Collins died a few months ago at the age of 90. He was born in Rome, October 31, 1930, in via Tevere, not far from the American embassy, where his father who was an army officer stationed in Italy worked. Nothing else is known of his connection with Rome, but when he left he was celebrated more in Italy than in the United States. He was the first Italian to have seen the dark side of the moon.
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