Pioneering astronaut, Michael Collins, Apollo 11 command module pilot.
Credits: NASA

Nearly 13,500 people have signed a petition to NASA to name the space agency’s Lunar Gateway the Collins Lunar Gateway – a legacy tribute to the late Apollo 11 astronaut, Michael Collins.

Posted on Change.org, the petition explains:

“The Lunar Gateway will be a space station in orbit around the Moon that will provide staging for all future lunar astronauts in the Artemis Program. Before they descend to the surface of the Moon, they will all pass through the Gateway.”

NASA’s Lunar Gateway.
Credit: NASA/JSC

While Apollo 11’s Michael Collins did not descend to the surface, the petition adds, he remained alone in lunar orbit for nearly 21 and a half hours while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited the Moon’s surface. “He watched as his fellow astronauts descended onto the surface, just as many astronauts will do from the Gateway in the future,” notes the petition.

Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974

Carry the fire

The Collins legacy should be honored by NASA and the space community. “Those who seek to follow his path will be able to honor the legacy he left by living and passing through the Collins Lunar Gateway on the way to blaze their own trails and carry the fire,” the petition concludes.

To view the petition created on April 29, go to:

https://www.change.org/p/nasa-change-the-lunar-gateway-name-to-the-collins-lunar-gateway

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