Dear Columbia: Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins says thanks

Michael Collins flew in both the Gemini 10 and the Apollo 11 space missions in the 1960s. After retiring from NASA in 1970, he became director of the National Air and Space Museum until 1978, when he became undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. From 1982 to 2006, he served on the National Geographic Society's board of trustees. Collins died from cancer at age 90 on April 28, 2021. He contributed this essay to our "Dear Spacecraft" series in 2019.