En route pour la Lune

A book for young readers adapting the recollections of astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot of Apollo 11. In the first person, the author retraces his path (a military child's boyhood, his career as a fighter and then test pilot, his selection by NASA, his Gemini 10 flight and spacewalk) up to the July 1969 lunar mission, during which he remained alone in orbit around the Moon aboard Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin landed. The narrative interweaves lived experience with accessible explanations of rockets, spacesuits, weightlessness and flight mechanics, and closes with a look ahead at the future of spaceflight (the shuttle, orbital stations, a voyage to Mars).