---
product_id: 3835627
title: "Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys"
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---

# Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys

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## Description

The years that have passed since Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins piloted the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the moon in July 1969 have done nothing to alter the fundamental wonder of the event: man reaching the moon remains one of the great events--technical and spiritual--of our lifetime. In Carrying the Fire , Michael Collins conveys, in a very personal way, the drama, beauty, and humor of that adventure. He also traces his development from his first flight experiences in the air force, through his days as a test pilot, to his Apollo 11 space walk, presenting an evocative picture of the joys of flight as well as a new perspective on time, light, and movement from someone who has seen the fragile Earth from the other side of the moon.

Review: Collins can write! Funny, factual to large audience.Test pilot,astronaut,later General - Carrying The Fire is a great astronaut book. Michael Collins shows us he is a very very good writer and refused to use a ghost writer. He explains he is deliberately trying to write to a wide audience not just the technologically inclined. His writing style is light and crisp while humorous. He is not constantly me me me and shows us there were other astronauts smarter than he and more suited for different jobs. We see his early career as a fighter pilot and experimental test pilot. Then we see his NASA training. He goes up in Gemini 10 and does a very important spacewalk. At the time John Young as the commander of Gemini 10 and Mike Collins set a new altitude record. Also a retrieval of a micro meteor pad from the Agena spacecraft is accomplished by Mike Collins with the help of his spacewalk. Many pictures and valuable navigation by different stars is accomplished. Many experiments are accomplished. The individual astronauts are assigned different jobs/specialties. He is assigned by Al Shepard to be in charge of space suits and EVAs (space walks). We see he is never in the loop to be a commander of a space mission but to serve as a very important specialist and later as the Columbia pilot. We see the horror of the loss of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire. Many of the astronauts lives are discussed. Excellent pictures are in the book. My favorite historically is the one with his father in uniform with General Pershing and a nice picture of NASA 904 T38 flying....our teacher,transportation and toy. Mike trains and trains and is the Columbia pilot on Apol1o 11. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become first and second men on the moon. Mike's job is to stay in orbit and retrieve the Eagle and get everybody home. We see he is all alone as he orbits the Moon. He can talk to Houston control and with Neil and Buzz on the moon at times when properly positioned in lunar orbit. However orbiting on the far side of the moon he is completely cut off from humanity and is in his own universe. He has deep thoughts on his temporary solitude without fear and loneliness. He explains he is not jealous he did not set foot on the moon and his part in the mission was just as important and he is proud of it. Later he becomes the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs with the State department for a year. He meets dozens of high officials, kings and queens, and presidents. Later still he is in charge of the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. He stays with the Air Force and retires from the Air Force reserves as a Major General. Collins says he is happy retired with his family and has had a great life. He explains we should go to Mars but also that we should cherish and help solve the huge problems facing us on Earth. We can and must do both. His main word for Earth as seen from space is fragile. Readers will enjoy Mike Collins writing style. We get lots of factual information that is very interesting but definitely not dry. Mike is able to be funny with a quick wit and show us his shortcomings as well as his strengths. Mike Collins a true American hero.I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading other books by Mike Collins. The man can really write. 5 stars.
Review: The right stuff: astronaut autobiographies from Glenn to Hadfield - An enduring image of an ‘astronaut’ was created for the public by NASA, Time magazine, and Tom Woolf’s The Right Stuff. These caricatures of the original seven American astronauts, the so-called Mercury-7, chosen to assert American supremacy over the communist threat of Sputnik have seemingly endured way past their use by date. A resurgence in interest in ‘astronauts’ was made almost single-handedly in the English speaking world by the Canadian Colonel Chris Hadfield. His much publicised exploits, through the media of YouTube, as commander of expedition 35 aboard the International Space Station made obvious a change from May 5, 1961 when Alan Shepherd rode Freedom 7 into the history books. In his autobiographical An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, the now retired Hadfield provides one of the most readable and honest stories of his journey from being a glider in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets in 1975 to commanding the international space Station in 2013 - after ‘only’ 21 years of astronaut training. He candidly describes the effort and training to get to being a modern astronauts - studying, practicing, learning, waiting, preparing for the worst - then being flexible enough to deal with the unexpected. What I liked is his can do approach as explained in his response to the 1969 Apollo 11moon landing and wanting to become an astronaut: I also knew, as did every other kid in Canada, that it was impossible. Astronauts were American. NASA only accepted applications from U.S citizens, and Canada didn’t even have a space agency. I was old enough to understand that getting ready wasn’t simply a matter of playing “space mission” with my brothers in our bunk beds, underneath a big National geographic poster of the Moon. But there was no program I could enroll in, no manual i could read, no one to ask. There was only one option, I decided. I had to imagine what an astronaut might do if he were 9 years old, then do exactly the same thing. His laconic, sometimes counter-intuitive advise is always presented with a wealth of evidence to support his lesson. His Frank assessment of the impact of his dream on the rest of his family make a good reminder for all the corporate males who neglect family events for yet another sales meeting. Hadfield’s book is a great read and compares favorably with two of my other notable astronaut autobiographies. At the age of five I was devastated when my mum said to me that I could not become an astronaut. She dashed my probably overly enthusiastic boyish exuberance regarding space exploration explaining that I would need to be both American and a military pilot. Despite this early reality check, and taking a different path to Hadfield, I followed the Apollo program with enthusiasm - racing home from primary school to watch the historic moon-walk of Armstrong and Aldrin. Of those Apollo 11 voyagers only Michael Collins put pen to paper to capture his journeys as an astronaut in the vivid and captivating Carrying the Fire. Collins displays a fine writing style and wry sense of humor. He wrote from an earlier time than Hadfield. Collins was part of the “Apollo fourteen”, the third group of astronauts, after being unsuccessful for selection in the second group, the “New Nine”. Collins adroitly describes his emergence as an astronaut, training for and flying on Gemini 10 with John Young and participating in the US’s third “space walk”. Collins was originally picked as part of the Apollo 8 crew. He was replaced by Jim Lovell when a bone spur was discovered on his spine, requiring surgery. He relates his feelings at losing this opportunity, Apollo 8 became the bold second manned Apollo flight all the way to circle the Moon, and then gaining his place in history as the Command Module Pilot of Apollo 11. Other books from this era that deserve a mention are Deke Slayton’s Deke and John Glenn’s A Memoir. Both of these were of the Mercury 7. Glenn’s memoir is so straight that it strains the reader’s credulity. Extraordinarily enough it is all John Glenn - astronaut, married family man, US Senator - it is definitely one of an uncomplicated patriotic kind. Slayton was different, grounded with a heart irregularity and instead of flying became the first Chief of the Astronaut Corps and selected the crews who flew Gemini, Apollo and Skylab missions. His book, written as he was dying from cancer, covers the full space race period up to his retirement post the start of the Space Shuttle era. Other books of note are books by Eugene Cernan The Last Man on the Moon, and John Young’s Forever Young. My third must read astronaut autobiography though is Mike Mullane’s Riding Rockets. This in my mind is a minor classic, again so different to both Collins and Hadfield. Mullane was part of the Space Shuttle generation of astronauts, the 1978 class of TFNGs (the Thirty Five New Guys), a group that included the first female NASA astronauts. This book contains an emotional level and cadence not pictured in other first hand astronaut memoirs. Mullane, a self-confessed inhabitant from planet ‘arrested development’ shares his growing pains in recognising that women could be colleagues and brilliant astronauts at that. His brutally honest depiction of losing his friend Judy Resnik in the Challenger disaster due to NASA hubris. Mullane describes in vivid detail the subsequent appalling bureaucratic treatment of the family members who were present at the disastrous launch. His own experience prior to this when STS-27 suffered near catastrophic heat shield damage from launch damage makes this description all the more poignant. The whole fateful uncertainty of the Space Shuttle era, the “glory and the folly” of this remarkable era in human exploration of near space is wittily and cuttingly told. If you aren’t both amazed and angered in reading this memoir than I suggest you go back and read it again. Chris Hadfield | An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth | Little Brown & Company | 2013 | ISBN 978-0-316-25301-7 | 295 pp | hardback Michael Collins | Carrying the Fire | 1974 | 40th Anniversary edition 2009 | Farrar Straus and Giroux | ISBN 978-0-374-53194-2 | 478 pp | paperback Mike Mullane | Riding Rockets | Scribner | 2006 | ISBN 978-0-7432-7683-2 | 382 pp | paperback This review first published on dragonlaughing

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #1,161,544 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #209 in Air Travel Reference (Books) #318 in Astronautics & Space Flight #574 in Aeronautics & Astronautics (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 1,741 Reviews |

## Images

![Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ctOl+EJCL.jpg)

## Available Options

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Collins can write! Funny, factual to large audience.Test pilot,astronaut,later General
*by T***N on March 20, 2010*

Carrying The Fire is a great astronaut book. Michael Collins shows us he is a very very good writer and refused to use a ghost writer. He explains he is deliberately trying to write to a wide audience not just the technologically inclined. His writing style is light and crisp while humorous. He is not constantly me me me and shows us there were other astronauts smarter than he and more suited for different jobs. We see his early career as a fighter pilot and experimental test pilot. Then we see his NASA training. He goes up in Gemini 10 and does a very important spacewalk. At the time John Young as the commander of Gemini 10 and Mike Collins set a new altitude record. Also a retrieval of a micro meteor pad from the Agena spacecraft is accomplished by Mike Collins with the help of his spacewalk. Many pictures and valuable navigation by different stars is accomplished. Many experiments are accomplished. The individual astronauts are assigned different jobs/specialties. He is assigned by Al Shepard to be in charge of space suits and EVAs (space walks). We see he is never in the loop to be a commander of a space mission but to serve as a very important specialist and later as the Columbia pilot. We see the horror of the loss of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire. Many of the astronauts lives are discussed. Excellent pictures are in the book. My favorite historically is the one with his father in uniform with General Pershing and a nice picture of NASA 904 T38 flying....our teacher,transportation and toy. Mike trains and trains and is the Columbia pilot on Apol1o 11. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become first and second men on the moon. Mike's job is to stay in orbit and retrieve the Eagle and get everybody home. We see he is all alone as he orbits the Moon. He can talk to Houston control and with Neil and Buzz on the moon at times when properly positioned in lunar orbit. However orbiting on the far side of the moon he is completely cut off from humanity and is in his own universe. He has deep thoughts on his temporary solitude without fear and loneliness. He explains he is not jealous he did not set foot on the moon and his part in the mission was just as important and he is proud of it. Later he becomes the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs with the State department for a year. He meets dozens of high officials, kings and queens, and presidents. Later still he is in charge of the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. He stays with the Air Force and retires from the Air Force reserves as a Major General. Collins says he is happy retired with his family and has had a great life. He explains we should go to Mars but also that we should cherish and help solve the huge problems facing us on Earth. We can and must do both. His main word for Earth as seen from space is fragile. Readers will enjoy Mike Collins writing style. We get lots of factual information that is very interesting but definitely not dry. Mike is able to be funny with a quick wit and show us his shortcomings as well as his strengths. Mike Collins a true American hero.I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading other books by Mike Collins. The man can really write. 5 stars.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The right stuff: astronaut autobiographies from Glenn to Hadfield
*by K***R on April 13, 2014*

An enduring image of an ‘astronaut’ was created for the public by NASA, Time magazine, and Tom Woolf’s The Right Stuff. These caricatures of the original seven American astronauts, the so-called Mercury-7, chosen to assert American supremacy over the communist threat of Sputnik have seemingly endured way past their use by date. A resurgence in interest in ‘astronauts’ was made almost single-handedly in the English speaking world by the Canadian Colonel Chris Hadfield. His much publicised exploits, through the media of YouTube, as commander of expedition 35 aboard the International Space Station made obvious a change from May 5, 1961 when Alan Shepherd rode Freedom 7 into the history books. In his autobiographical An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, the now retired Hadfield provides one of the most readable and honest stories of his journey from being a glider in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets in 1975 to commanding the international space Station in 2013 - after ‘only’ 21 years of astronaut training. He candidly describes the effort and training to get to being a modern astronauts - studying, practicing, learning, waiting, preparing for the worst - then being flexible enough to deal with the unexpected. What I liked is his can do approach as explained in his response to the 1969 Apollo 11moon landing and wanting to become an astronaut: I also knew, as did every other kid in Canada, that it was impossible. Astronauts were American. NASA only accepted applications from U.S citizens, and Canada didn’t even have a space agency. I was old enough to understand that getting ready wasn’t simply a matter of playing “space mission” with my brothers in our bunk beds, underneath a big National geographic poster of the Moon. But there was no program I could enroll in, no manual i could read, no one to ask. There was only one option, I decided. I had to imagine what an astronaut might do if he were 9 years old, then do exactly the same thing. His laconic, sometimes counter-intuitive advise is always presented with a wealth of evidence to support his lesson. His Frank assessment of the impact of his dream on the rest of his family make a good reminder for all the corporate males who neglect family events for yet another sales meeting. Hadfield’s book is a great read and compares favorably with two of my other notable astronaut autobiographies. At the age of five I was devastated when my mum said to me that I could not become an astronaut. She dashed my probably overly enthusiastic boyish exuberance regarding space exploration explaining that I would need to be both American and a military pilot. Despite this early reality check, and taking a different path to Hadfield, I followed the Apollo program with enthusiasm - racing home from primary school to watch the historic moon-walk of Armstrong and Aldrin. Of those Apollo 11 voyagers only Michael Collins put pen to paper to capture his journeys as an astronaut in the vivid and captivating Carrying the Fire. Collins displays a fine writing style and wry sense of humor. He wrote from an earlier time than Hadfield. Collins was part of the “Apollo fourteen”, the third group of astronauts, after being unsuccessful for selection in the second group, the “New Nine”. Collins adroitly describes his emergence as an astronaut, training for and flying on Gemini 10 with John Young and participating in the US’s third “space walk”. Collins was originally picked as part of the Apollo 8 crew. He was replaced by Jim Lovell when a bone spur was discovered on his spine, requiring surgery. He relates his feelings at losing this opportunity, Apollo 8 became the bold second manned Apollo flight all the way to circle the Moon, and then gaining his place in history as the Command Module Pilot of Apollo 11. Other books from this era that deserve a mention are Deke Slayton’s Deke and John Glenn’s A Memoir. Both of these were of the Mercury 7. Glenn’s memoir is so straight that it strains the reader’s credulity. Extraordinarily enough it is all John Glenn - astronaut, married family man, US Senator - it is definitely one of an uncomplicated patriotic kind. Slayton was different, grounded with a heart irregularity and instead of flying became the first Chief of the Astronaut Corps and selected the crews who flew Gemini, Apollo and Skylab missions. His book, written as he was dying from cancer, covers the full space race period up to his retirement post the start of the Space Shuttle era. Other books of note are books by Eugene Cernan The Last Man on the Moon, and John Young’s Forever Young. My third must read astronaut autobiography though is Mike Mullane’s Riding Rockets. This in my mind is a minor classic, again so different to both Collins and Hadfield. Mullane was part of the Space Shuttle generation of astronauts, the 1978 class of TFNGs (the Thirty Five New Guys), a group that included the first female NASA astronauts. This book contains an emotional level and cadence not pictured in other first hand astronaut memoirs. Mullane, a self-confessed inhabitant from planet ‘arrested development’ shares his growing pains in recognising that women could be colleagues and brilliant astronauts at that. His brutally honest depiction of losing his friend Judy Resnik in the Challenger disaster due to NASA hubris. Mullane describes in vivid detail the subsequent appalling bureaucratic treatment of the family members who were present at the disastrous launch. His own experience prior to this when STS-27 suffered near catastrophic heat shield damage from launch damage makes this description all the more poignant. The whole fateful uncertainty of the Space Shuttle era, the “glory and the folly” of this remarkable era in human exploration of near space is wittily and cuttingly told. If you aren’t both amazed and angered in reading this memoir than I suggest you go back and read it again. Chris Hadfield | An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth | Little Brown & Company | 2013 | ISBN 978-0-316-25301-7 | 295 pp | hardback Michael Collins | Carrying the Fire | 1974 | 40th Anniversary edition 2009 | Farrar Straus and Giroux | ISBN 978-0-374-53194-2 | 478 pp | paperback Mike Mullane | Riding Rockets | Scribner | 2006 | ISBN 978-0-7432-7683-2 | 382 pp | paperback This review first published on dragonlaughing

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Collins is a 'Steely-Eyed, Two-Fisted Writer'
*by D***D on January 11, 2013*

Michael Collins has a genuine gift with prose; he describes precisely and with flair, has a deadpan wit that can be as dry as the desert and as innocent as a lamb, and is simply the finest writer of the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo astronauts. His book gives a first-hand account not only of the selection process that he endured, but the hectic, colorful, Astro-A-Go-Go world of Houston in the Sixties. He somehow resists the urge to turn his story into self-adulation, bully pulpit, or tedium; an urge that seemingly overpowered many of his fellow astronauts when they 'wrote' their own books. His 'reporter's eye' and droll wit is especially surprising in someone that is a military academy graduate, career officer (he retired with great distinction as a lieutenant general), and a trained engineer. Collin's description of the training and flight of Gemini 10 with 'Corned Beef' John Young is vivid and arresting. His narration of his space walk is so entrancing that it settled the question -- at least, for me -- what it was truly like 'up there'. Apollo 11, the Big Enchilada, is one of the book's finest segments. Collins gives readers such a sense of belonging to the mission themselves that it is irresistible. He describes the training in the simulators, the torture in the 'Vomit Comet' and the 'G-Wheel', and how it was to work with Armstrong and Aldrin. In this last, he is frank and candid. As he notes, it is difficult to have so many 'overachieving sons of overachievers' working together without some friction. He relates a small flare between the other two, after a 'crash' on the lunar surface during simulator training. This incident later appeared, nearly verbatim in the magnificent Tom Hanks 'From Earth to Moon' series. Collins also takes particular care to pay homage and respect to the most unappreciated and neglected of the astronaut's support system -- his wife, Patricia. By the way, he and Patricia are still married (to each other), for about a half century, having been married at Chambley, France, which happens to be where I was born. Although I doubt that the two events are related. At least, one hopes so. This book also has the advantage of giving color and life to other books about the space program, particularly Andrew Chaikin's wonderful 'A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts', and Gene Kranz's 'Failure Is Not An Option'. Collins has that most difficult-to-exercise gift of the writer -- what to leave on the cutting room floor. I always found myself feeling, as I do with a great actor, of wanting just a little more. He never over-explains, and his description, even of the most prosaic and mundane things, is terse, apt, and still vibrant and vivid. I believe that he could write a pilot's checklist and make it absorbing. This is one of the books that I buy in bulk, and give away. Not only is it a record of a fascinating time in history, but it is a fine example of how such a tale should be written. A small aside about the humor in the book; there is a footnote regarding radio procedures among fighter pilots that is simply one of the funniest things that I've ever read. How many footnotes have ever made you laugh aloud? I read the book (in one sitting, I might add, and yes -- it's that good) while occupying a booth next to a plate-glass window in a tavern during an afternoon of mixed thundershowers and blasting sunlight. When I read that particular bon mot, I roared, causing the other customers to stare and the waitress to bring me a glass of water and ask if I were all right. I also owe a personal debt to Michael Collins. My brilliant and beautiful wife, Diane, are getting ready to retire. When our financial adviser asked me to describe my goals for a perfect retirement, I thought for a moment, and paraphrased something that Collins had said in his magnificent book: "Sitting on the porch in the evening, and talking to my wife."

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*Last updated: 2026-08-28*