An homage to Michael Collins who passed away April 28, 2021.
This version of the painting features the Apollo 11 CSM "Columbia" with Michael Collins in orbit around the moon. Much has been made about how lonely he must have felt however Michael Collins says while he was certainly aware of his solitude, he was quite happy in the spacecraft. There were plenty of tasks to keep Columbia happily humming along to occupy his time. His biggest fear was that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin might not be able to make it back from the lunar surface. Had that been the case he would have had to make the journey back to Earth on his own. He would have been a marked man for life. Fortunately everything went well and the crew returned to Earth having made history.
Every Apollo mission consisted of a three man crew; the command module pilot, the lunar module pilot and the commander. For those missions when the lunar module separated from the command module, the command module pilot stayed behind to man the command module alone.