“I really wasn’t very conscious of the earth at all, only the…spacecraft…Work, work, work! A guy should be told to go out on the end of his string and simply gaze around—what guru gets to meditate for a whole earth’s worth? I think nirvana must be at an altitude of 250 miles, not down below in the teeming streets of Calcutta or up above in the monotonous black void. I am in the cosmic arena, the place to gain a celestial perspective; it remains only to slow down long enough to capture it, even a teacupful will do, will last a lifetime below. “I found truth in orbit.” Wrong, I haven’t. “I found God outside my spacecraft.” Wrong, I didn’t even have time to look for Him. Would that I could, like Murcury of the winged heel, convey some swift message of value, a message of splendor and beauty, of hope and praise, a message which accurately mirrors what I have seen today. John Magee would have known how to do it. Behind my head, stowed away in a small bag with some flags, rings, and other trivia, is a small file card on which my wife, Pat, has typed his poem “High Flight.”

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds—and down a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

All that from the cockpit of a Spitfire. What could he have said after one orbit? I cry that he was killed.”

—Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot, Apollo 11
“Carrying The Fire”