{"id":1312540,"date":"2019-07-17T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T20:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/former-kennedy-space-center-engineer-tom-collins-of-rifle-commemorates-his-space-program-career-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-apollo-11\/"},"modified":"2019-07-17T14:36:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T20:36:00","slug":"former-kennedy-space-center-engineer-tom-collins-of-rifle-commemorates-his-space-program-career-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-apollo-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/former-kennedy-space-center-engineer-tom-collins-of-rifle-commemorates-his-space-program-career-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-apollo-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Kennedy Space Center engineer Tom Collins of Rifle commemorates his space program career on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Rifle resident Tom Collins recenlty loaned a portion of his collection of NASA memorabilia to the RIfle Heritage Center to display at the Garfield County Library during the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Collins worked as an engineer at Kennedy Space Center for 33 years, working closely on the Apollo program as a fluids engineer.<\/strong>
Kyle Mills \/ Citizen Telegram<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

More than a half century has gone by, but there is still a sparkle in Tom Collins\u2019 eyes and a grin on his face when he starts to reminisce about the space program.<\/p>\n

The 78-year-old Rifle resident first set foot on Florida\u2019s Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center in 1963.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t much to see. Back then, it was still palm trees, and they were still building everything, including the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building),\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of the world\u2019s largest buildings, but it was still just under construction, as were all the pads.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve lost a lot of interest in it, and it gave us so many things that we wouldn\u2019t have had if not for the [Apollo] program.\u201dTom Collins, former NASA engineer and Rifle resident<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Collins recalled that it was an interesting time. They were launching Gemini\u2019s at the time, and the Mercury program had just wrapped up, he said of the earlier manned spacecraft programs that preceded the Apollo Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery interesting as a matter of fact. When I first went down there I was in charge of a lab, and I sampled space suits for Gemini,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to meet a lot of the Gemini astronauts. In fact, I probably met them all but I don\u2019t remember,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been too many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

ground floor of apollo<\/p>\n

Soon after, Collins began working on the Apollo Program as a fluids engineer on the Saturn V rocket.<\/p>\n

Collins did maintenance on all the hydraulics, hyperbolic, pneumatic and cryogenic systems \u2014 anything that had fluid, he worked on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved my job. I really enjoyed it,\u201d Collins said. \u201cIt was very time-consuming, and there weren\u2019t any experts in any of these fields, so we had to work a lot of hours to make up for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of all the people working on Apollo 11, Collins said the average age when it took off was 28.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 28, as matter of fact \u00ad\u2014 kind of a funny,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

Because of what he was doing and where he was working, he had opportunity to meet the Apollo 11 astronauts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were all really nice guys,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

Reminiscing about the day of the launch, on July 16, 1969, Collins remembers he wasn\u2019t allowed in his office that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy office at the time was between the VAB and pad A, right on the crawler way as matter of fact,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we couldn\u2019t even go out there and work \u2014 that was within the blast limit. We were hanging back at the LCC (Launch Control Center),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Collins watched Apollo 11 blast off from the front of the LCC, more than 3 miles from the launchpad.<\/p>\n

For Collins and the other employees behind the scenes at the time, it was just another launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d already watched so many of them go up. We had already gone to the moon, but we hadn\u2019t landed. You have to remember, of course, Apollo 8 was the one that just circled and took pictures, and we saw the moon rise,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cApollo 10, the \u201cLem\u201d (Lunar Module) went down close to the moon and came back up, just checking docking and to see if everything worked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the launch wasn\u2019t exactly a big deal for Apollo 11, except we did know it was going to the moon and landing \u2014 hopefully \u2014 and it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

COMMEMORATING moon landing<\/p>\n

As the anniversary approached, Collins recently visited the Rifle Branch of the Garfield County Library to inquire if they would be interested in displaying his collection.<\/p>\n

After learning it was the Rifle Heritage Center that is in charge of the displays, Collins offered to loan his own memorabilia that he has kept over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI forget now what percentage of Americans, or even earthlings, weren\u2019t even born when this happened,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

Working for the Kennedy Space Center for 33 years and 37 years with the space program overall, Collins collected a lot of memorabilia, certificates and mementos along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept most of it. This is actually just a small portion of it,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

He never kept track of how many launches he took part in and watched first hand over his three decades in the space program, but he says there is nothing like it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt rocks everything, vibrates the whole earth. It\u2019s amazing,\u201d Collins said of the launches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to attend Firecracker 400 at Daytona. If you go and watch, it\u2019s a whole different experience,\u201d he said of the popular longtime NASCAR event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rockets are the same way. You can watch it on TV, but it\u2019s certainly not the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

The library display includes all the patches from the Apollo program, plus the certification and awards Collins received working on the different missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Apollo program wasn\u2019t just the lunar landings. We had Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz project (the docking of an Apollo Command\/Service Module and the Soviet Soyuz 19 capsule) \u2014 the mission where we linked up with Russia,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked on all those, and there were three missions to the Skylab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins really hopes younger people will come to the library, and get an interest in the space program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve lost a lot of interest in it, and it gave us so many things that we wouldn\u2019t have had if not for the program,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see more people take an interest in what we did, and what\u2019s coming in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins plans to stay close to home this week, but thought about going down to the Cape for the anniversary. But he said there is nothing there for him all these years later.<\/p>\n

The display will continue for the next two months in Rifle.<\/p>\n

kmills@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rifle resident Tom Collins recenlty loaned a portion of his collection of NASA memorabilia to the RIfle Heritage Center to display at the Garfield County Library during the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Collins worked as an engineer at Kennedy Space Center for 33 years, working closely on the Apollo program as a fluids engineer.Kyle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 21:03:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}