Flying to the Moon: Chapters 10–12

by Michael Collins
Astronaut Michael Collins was part of Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing. In this autobiography, he recounts his early days as an Air Force pilot and his journey into space.

Here are links to our lists for the book:Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–9, Chapters 10–12
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. insert
    fit snugly into
    The hip pain was caused by the removal of a circular piece of bone from my hip, which had then been inserted into a hole in my spine, where it would cause new bone to grow and strengthen my spine.
  2. regain
    get or find back; recover the use of
    When the three months were up, an X-ray showed that my spine was healing beautifully, and was regaining full strength.
  3. assign
    select something or someone for a specific purpose
    I was allowed to fly airplanes again, and I hoped to be assigned to a flight crew, but my first job was to help with the flight of Borman-Lovell-Anders to the moon.
  4. wince
    draw back, as with fear or pain
    The safety people wouldn’t let spectators get within three miles of it, but even at that distance the monster made the sand shake under my feet, and the crackling roar of its five huge engines made me wince.
  5. veer
    turn sharply; change direction abruptly
    If the Saturn V veered off in the wrong direction, I could tell it by watching the dot separate from the line.
  6. void
    containing nothing
    It is the very first part of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep
  7. oasis
    a fertile tract in a desert
    On their way back from the moon, Jim Lovell said he thought the earth looked like a “grand oasis in the great vastness of space.”
  8. certify
    guarantee as meeting a certain standard
    Therefore, the three of us would be separated from the rest of the world until we had been certified “germ-free,” or at least “moon-germ-free” (there is no way of getting rid of the normal germs in your body).
  9. nestle
    lie in a sheltered position
    Transposition and docking was the process by which I would fly the command module out in front of the Saturn V, turn around and dock with the lunar module nestled in the Saturn’s nose, and pull the lunar module free.
  10. stranded
    cut off or left behind
    Neil and Buzz’s engine had better work, or they were stranded forever.
  11. ignite
    cause to start burning
    Trans-earth injection meant igniting the command module’s engine to cause us to speed up enough to break the moon’s tug of gravity and send us on our way back to earth.
  12. hurtle
    make a thrusting forward movement
    We had left the surface of the earth, which of course was itself hurtling through space in its orbit around the sun.
  13. vague
    lacking clarity or distinctness
    I’m sure the people in Houston didn’t have the vaguest idea what I was talking about, but they didn’t admit that, and said simply that they would pass the information on.
  14. quarantine
    isolation to prevent the spread of infectious disease
    The three of us inside the mobile quarantine facility, listening to the President first stage had been very busy, steering from side to side, while the second stage had been as smooth as glass.
  15. maneuver
    a deliberate coordinated movement requiring dexterity
    It was time for transposition and docking, the maneuver by which we would attach Columbia to Eagle, nose to nose.
  16. dullard
    a person who is not very bright or interesting
    We usually think of the moon as being quite bright, especially when it is full, but the moon is a dullard compared to the earth.
  17. albedo
    the ratio of reflected to incident light
    In technical terms, the albedo of the moon is .07, which means that it bounces back only 7 percent of the light striking it, absorbing the other 93 percent.
  18. adjust
    alter or regulate so as to conform to a standard
    We ignited Columbia’s rocket engine once, for just three seconds, to adjust our course slightly.
  19. suspended
    supported or kept from sinking or falling by buoyancy
    It was a strange sensation to float in the total darkness, suspended by a cobweb’s light touch, with no pressure anywhere on my body.
  20. sextant
    an instrument for measuring angular distance
    With my sextant I took several measurements on a crater in the Foaming Sea (Mare Spumans, in Latin) east of our landing site in the Sea of Tranquility.
  21. terrain
    a piece of ground having specific characteristics
    The idea was that my measurements could increase the accuracy of our knowledge of the height of the terrain Neil and Buzz would be flying over in their descent to a landing.
  22. desolate
    providing no shelter or sustenance
    I knew from my clock that the earth was about to reappear, and right on schedule it popped into view, rising like a blue and white jewel over the desolate lunar horizon.
  23. lurch
    abrupt up-and-down motion
    The docking itself went well, with just a slight bump as Columbia nudged Eagle, but then Eagle gave a wild lurch and for a couple of seconds I thought we might have real trouble.
  24. penetrate
    pass into or through, often by overcoming resistance
    As we began to penetrate the thin upper atmosphere, the sky out our windows began to change from the black of space to a tunnel of light.
  25. jettison
    throw away, of something encumbering
    It depended on a lot of things, but the most important item was to jettison the parachutes swiftly, before the wind could catch in them and pull the spacecraft sideways, causing it to topple upside down.
  26. contaminate
    make impure
    These were supposed to keep any moon germs inside with us, so that we would not contaminate the world.
  27. efficient
    being effective without wasting time, effort, or expense
    For example, we are learning more efficient ways of catching fish, and that is good because it means more people can be fed from the oceans.
  28. mobility
    the quality of moving freely
    The automobile gives us great mobility, but pollutes our atmosphere.
  29. debris
    the remains of something that has been destroyed
    The most popular theory is that, about four billion years ago, a huge object collided with the earth, and the moon was formed from the resulting debris.
  30. perish
    pass from physical life
    The seven deaths were the first since Grissom, White, and Chaffee perished in a Launchpad fire nearly twenty years previously.
  31. friction
    the resistance when a body is moved in contact with another
    So fast, in fact, that the friction of the air entering the engines would produce enough heat to melt the engines.
  32. alloy
    a mixture containing two or more metallic elements
    Aboard Freedom, not only could there be perfect mixing, but gas bubbles could be distributed evenly throughout, making a kind of Swiss cheese, or foam-metal alloy.
  33. abundant
    present in great quantity
    Solar energy is not only abundant (and free) but it is also clean, unlike other popular sources, such as coal.
  34. outlandish
    noticeably or extremely unconventional or unusual
    Using the same water and air over and over again sounds terribly complicated, and a little bit messy, but it’s really not such an outlandish idea.
  35. reservoir
    lake used to store water for community use
    Then the water works its way into a stream and then a reservoir and finally is pumped back into the sink to be used as dishwater once again.
  36. asteroid
    a small celestial body composed of rock and metal
    Perhaps a trip from Libra to one of the asteroids would bring back materials rich in carbon and nitrogen.
  37. tolerant
    able to endure environmental conditions or stress
    Their bodies would also become less tolerant of heat and cold, for Libra would not experience the extremes of temperature that we find in Alaskan winters or Arizona summers.
  38. susceptible
    yielding readily to or capable of undergoing a process
    Since harmful organisms (poison-ivy plants, jellyfish, measles, certain germs, etc.) would have been prevented from entering Libra, a trip to earth for Librans could be dangerous indeed, because their bodies would be more susceptible to earth diseases.
  39. interference
    electrical or acoustic activity that disturbs communication
    On earth, astronomers are hindered by electric lights and radio signals that pollute the night sky, but on the back side of the moon astronomers could view the universe without interference.
  40. monotonous
    tediously repetitious or lacking in variety
    Instead of being locked into a monotonous, 365/4-day orbit around the sun, starship passengers would always find the view out their windows slightly different from anything they had ever seen before.
Created on Sat Aug 02 21:49:06 EDT 2014 (updated Tue Sep 04 15:50:26 EDT 2018)

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