Biography or autobiography? ...Snip.
Autobiography. I am after their own words.
You'll still get their own words from biographies, such as "First Man", the biography of Neil Armstrong.
Like others, I give "Carrying the Fire" by Mike Collins 10 out of 10.
There are plenty of direct quotes from Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins and others about Apollo 11 and everything that led up to it in the marvellous 1970 book, "First on the Moon - A Voyage with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr", written with Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, epilogue by Arthur C. Clarke. Michael Joseph Ltd, London (1970).
Farmer was senior editor and Hamblin was staff writer at "Life", and they lived with the astronauts and their families. Being such an early book, the astronauts' memories have not been dulled or altered by time, as we sometimes see now, such as a doco of this century where Frank Borman tells a yarn and Bill Anders cracks an expression that is probably saying, "No, Frank, it didn't
really happen like that..." But he keeps quiet and lets it pass.
"First on the Moon..." is an incredibly good book which I refer to often, but I found it very, very jarring on my first reading because it does things like halting at a nailbiting phase of the mission and telling us what the wives and kids are doing back on Earth, such as on page 227:
All systems performing well... Now about forty-five seconds from reacquiring... CAPCOM Charlie Duke putting in a call to the crew...
COLUMBIA (Collins): Houston, Columbia. Down-voice backup, do you read?
HOUSTON (Duke): Roger, we read you. Columbia, did you call, over?
COLUMBIA (Collins): Affirmative. Calling you on down-voice backup. How do you read me?
HOUSTON (Duke): Roger, better, Mike... We're satisfied with this COMM configuration. Let's stay with where we are. Over.
Eleven in the morning, Houston time; and it was Sunday...
Jan Armstrong spent the morning in her El Lago home, just waiting for the coming afternoon. In Nassau Bay the Collins daughters, Kate and Ann, served their mother breakfast in bed; their father had always brought Pat her breakfast on Sunday when he was home. Then Pat Collins, the three children and Pat's sister, Ellie Golden, attended the ten-thirty Mass at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church.
But that's what I've come to like about the book. It reinforces that there were a lot of ordinary people and some extraordinary people who were all in extraordinary circumstances, but normal life had to go on. It's not only about Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, it's about the humanity involved with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and that makes it a brilliant book. It might be hard to find a copy, but I have heard a rumour that a digital copy fell off a truck somewhere.
