I like Mike -- General Michael Collins, That Is

This year's John Glenn Lecture Series featured Sen. Glenn, Chris Kraft and the three Apollo 11 astronauts. Michael Collins was as smart, funny and humble as in "When We Left Earth." His talk starts roughly 55 minutes in.

Apologizing for the lecture-unfriendly layout of the IMAX theater, which he helped approve:

"I'm down here in the bottom of a black hole about to be sucked in by gravity..."

After putting up this picture, which he took as the LEM began its descent to the lunar surface:

"I like that photo, it's my favorite one. You see in the little thing there are 3 billion people, and then in the big thing there are two people..."

About the glistening blue earth in the background:

"Serene it is not. Fragile it is. The world population when we flew to the moon was 3 billion people. Today it's over six and headed for eight, so the experts say. In my view this growth is not wise, healthy or sustainable[...]

"Our economic models are all predicated on growth. They require it. Grow or die, or maybe both: the dead zone created by the runoff from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico is now larger than the State of New Jersey, and still growing...

"We need a new economic paradigm that somehow can produce prosperity without this kind of growth."

The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9fCPhspOCQ