All But One

This image is among my favorites from the Apollo program. Within it is all of mankind – every single human being alive at the time, except one single individual: Michael Collins, the astronaut who manned the Columbia crew module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on the Moon’s surface.

From his perch there, Collins took this photograph of the approaching Eagle, the ascent section of the Lunar Exploration Module (LEM) with by Armstrong and Aldrin in it.

NASA Image ID: AS11-44-6642; Date: July 21, 1969

Shortly after the picture was taken, Eagle docked with Columbia. Armstrong and Aldrin (and the samples they had collected on the Moon) transferred over to the crew module, where they reunited with Collins for the return trip to Earth.

Here is a more processed version of the image: