The Path to Freedom

By Michael Collins

The following Notes drafted by General Collins early in August and apparently intended for public utterance, probably to An Déil, were without correction by him. Obviously no one can now say what the changing circumstances might have caused him to alter or add. The Notes are now printed as an Introduction to the Articles written by General Collins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Release date: Nov 6, 2017

Michael Collins

Michael Collins (1930-2021) was an astronaut, one of 24 who have flown to the moon. A West Point graduate, he was an Air Force jet-fighter pilot and a test-pilot before being recruited by NASA in 1963 as a member of the third astronaut group selected for the Apollo moon project. Lieutenant Colonel Collins flew in the Gemini 10 space mission, orbiting the earth forty-three times in 1966, and piloted the Apollo 11 module for the 1969 lunar mission which put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon’s surface. After NASA, Collins became director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, then under secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and vice president of the LTV Aerospace and Defense Company. He held the rank of major general when he retired from the Air Force Reserve. Collins recounted his experiences as an astronaut in the memoirs Carrying the Fire and Flying to the Moon.