Has Michael Collins ever stated publicly if he was disappointed to have been so tantalizingly close to the moon but not actually get there?
I don’t have the answer, but I have wondered about this as well. But not just for him but for anyone who was in the Command Module while the other two were on the moon’s surface. I think some eventually did get to go down in later missions, right? I guess the way I have always tried to reconcile it is that even if he didn’t go down to the moon’s surface, he still experienced something (spaceflight) that only very few have every experienced.
Michael Collins wrote the best autobiography of any of the astronauts called “Carrying the Fire.”
I’m doing it from memory, but I believe basically he says yes, it would have been nice to be on the moon but he didn’t think of his job as any less important.
I wouldn’t describe it as disappointment at all.
And he turned down a chance to command a moon mission after Apollo 11.
Collins never flew in space again.
Look at it this way; maybe it wasn’t as cool a job as Armstrong and Aldrin’s, but it was a lot cooler than staying back at Mission Control.
Yes, he has stated no regrets he went 90% of the way and was glad to be a part of that historic mission. Let me recommend his book Carrying the Fire it is in my opinion the best book by any of the astronauts. If you want to know that was going with Apollo and Gemini this is the book to read. He was slated to be commander of one of the last Apollo missions thus walking on the moon but he decided against it feeling he did his part.
Not fast enough with the book recommendation.
From my uneducated perspective, I assume that running the module while the others are out on the surface isn’t the same as running it when everyone is on board. Therefore, Collins had a unique experience of his own.
With the Orion, all 4 people can go down and let the CM/SM orbit on autopilot, so no “left-outs” here.
One good aspect of Apollo that will be lacking in Orion, should the ascent of the lunar lander goes awry the CMP could go after them if they were off course. Collins relates this aspect his training for such emergency situations in his book.
I read the Wikipedia article on Orion and I’ll be damned, they plan to have a live person walking on Mars in 2037. I’ll be 67. I hope I live to see it!
Michael Collins sat in his little capsule, on his own, out of touch with the rest of humanity every time it went behind the Moon, keeping things ready so that his shipmates would be able to come home. Really, totally, fucking awesome.
John Young and Gene Cernan both orbited the moon on Apollo 10 and later landed on the moon as commanders of Apollos 16 and 17 respectively. What I’ve always found interesting was that Cernan turned down the position as the Apollo 16 lunar module pilot because he wanted to command a mission. At that point some of the later missions were being canceled and there was a real possibility that he was passing up the chance of walking on the moon at all. As it turned out, he became the last man (so far) to walk on the moon…
Did anybody else read this as ‘Onion’ and wonder what ridiculous situation was coming up?
Just me, then? All right.
I had breakfast once with Collins, so I could have asked him. But it seemed kind of tacky to bring it up when he was downing his coffee. 
If you haven’t seen it, please check out the documentary “In the Shadow of the Moon”. Collins is just great in this film, funny and charming. When he was on the command module, no one in this solar system was more alone. If the Lunar Module had failed to make it back, that would have been one very rough trip back.
About returning to Earth:
You, you are literally on fire. Your, uh, your heat shield is on fire, and it’s streaming, its fragments are streaming out behind you. It’s like being inside a gigantic lightbulb.
Yes, that thought has occured to me–that the men who were command module pilots on the successful Apollo landings are members of a very exclusive group: That no one in human history, before or since, has been more totally isolated than each of them was every time they were over the lunar farside while their comrades were still down on the Moon. I’m sure they had plenty to keep them busy up there, and those communication eclipses didn’t last all that long–but for those moments there were extraordinarily alone.
Well, he does hold one record that no other human being does (including Armstrong & Aldrin). He is the most isolated person in human history. No one else has ever been as far away from all other humans as he was.
I suppose you could say he was the loneliest man in history. But it doesn’t seem to have affected him much – from his writings & interviews, he seems like a pretty interesting guy.
Except, of course, for the other six Command Module pilots. But Collins had no way to be sure that Armstrong and Aldrin were going to make it back.
Of course, James Swigert aboard Apollo 13 was never alone. Though he, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise do share the interesting record of being the three human beings who were the furthest humans from Earth at one point.
He liberated most of Ireland, he has no need to go to the Moon.
Oops! Forgot about that. Surprising, considering how much I love the movie Apollo 13.