Michael Collins, the astronaut who piloted the command module during the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon, died today at age 90. “We regret to share that our beloved father and grandfather passed away today, after a valiant battle with cancer,” his family writes in a public statement.

On July 20 and 21, 1969, Collins orbited 69 miles above the surface of the moon while Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin explored the ground below. As the third member of Apollo 11, the man who didn’t walk on the moon, Collins has been called the “forgotten astronaut.” But he would arguably become the most important chronicler of humankind’s first mission to the surface of another world, in