Group 3 (1963)
Michael Collins
Orbited the Moon alone while Apollo 11 landed; the mission’s eloquent chronicler.
Michael Collins flew Gemini 10, performing two spacewalks, before serving as command module pilot on Apollo 11 — keeping solitary vigil in lunar orbit aboard Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin walked below. ‘Not since Adam has any human known such solitude,’ mission control noted as he passed behind the Moon.
Collins wrote Carrying the Fire, widely considered the finest astronaut memoir, and became the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.