ML138488
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Subject: (Interview). Subtitle: Michael Collins. Timecode In: 00:00:04. Timecode out: 00:32:17. Notes: Space flight. Equipment Notes: Stereo=1; Dual-Channel Mono. NPR/NGS RADIO EXPEDITIONS Show: Geographic Century Log of DAT #: 1 Date:02/12/99 ng = not good ok = okay g = good vg = very good Don Smith (DS) 00:01:42 Tell me what your name is and what you do. Michael Collins (MC) 00:01:45 I¿m Mike Collins and I¿m retired right now. I live in Florida, I spend a lot of time out on the water. My new interest is the ocean rather than space as it used to be although I certainly am keeping an interest in space in a hope for the future of our space exploration programs. DS 00:02:47 It¿s been 33 years since Gemini ten and 31 years since you went to the moon is it strange that it¿s been so long since we went to the moon? 00:02:23 MC 00:02:24 Well time does go by so swiftly. It is amazing to me sometimes when I talk to young people and they don¿t know anything about the lunar landings or the Apollo program but I guess that¿s the way it is I mean things march on so swiftly in our society today, in this environment that, I that I don¿t blame them. It has bee a long time since we¿ve been to the moon and I expect we¿ll eventually send people back to the moon. [G] Actually, I¿m a lot less interested in the moon than I am in Mars. I think that Mars is a far more varied and interesting spot to the moon. Mars is the closest thing that we have to a sister planet in this solar system and I am really intrigued by the possibility of sending people in expedition to Mars. As a matter of fact, I hope that we don¿t get detoured too long by sending people back to the moon. Been there, done that. I¿d like to see us get on to Mars. DS 00:03:29 Would you like to go? 00:03:29 MC 00:03:30 Yes, I definitely would like to go. There¿s no chance of it. I¿m 68 years old now. My hope is that I¿ll just be in my wheelchair somewhere ushering these people off when they leave Cape Canaveral when they begin their trip to Mars but if I were younger I definitely would want to go. DS 00:03:50 Well John Glenn did it. 00:03:51 MC 00:03:52 (laughter) That¿s true. Maybe I¿m no John Glenn. It is a long trip to Mars it is about 9 months one way, depending on how much fuel you have to spend. You can speed up the process a little bit but not by much. And then when you get to Mars and you want to come home you can¿t necessarily do it right away you may have to wait until the two planets, Earth and Mars are in proper alignment relative to each other before you are able to come back. So it¿s an expedition of about two years of duration and before you under take such a project you better be darn sure that you don¿t have too many geriatric astronauts on board that are going to have failing systems within that two year time frame. DS 00:04:45 That¿s got to do something to the astronaut¿s bodies, being in space, weightlessness. 00:04:50 MC 00:04:50 Weightlessness is a peculiar condition. Our bodies are not used to it here on earth. We are pinned down here by gravity which is a nuisance in some ways but our bodies have become so accustomed to it that if you remove gravity your bones, for example tend to leach out the calcium and your bone structure becomes very weak similar to very old people to osteoporosis. So there are a lot of difficulties for the human body in weightlessness but there are countermeasures. You can exercise like crazy, you can include a little centrifuge on board, you can spin people up and restore gravity to their bodies temporarily. So I¿m not concerned that it will be a show stopper but it is at least something that the people who are planning a Mars expedition must very carefully consider. DS 00:05:46 You did some running in place. 00:05:48 MC 00:05:49 Well on Gemini and o... (Notes truncated)
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- 22 Apr 2005 - Ben Brotman
- Digitized
- 22 Apr 2005 - Ben Brotman
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- 22 Apr 2005 - Ben Brotman