Eileen collins
Eileen collins
The first female pilot of a Space Shuttle as well as the first female commander of a U.S. Spacecraft.
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth19 November 1956
CityElmira, NY
pressure nerves emotion
I have no nerves, no emotion, no pressure.
moon design age
The vast majority of the shuttle program was a success. We learned so much about how a reusable spacecraft interacts with its environment, how it ages-and what to design next time.
opportunity thinking firsts
I'm honored to be the first woman to have the opportunity to command the shuttle. I don't really think about that on a day-to-day basis because I really don't need to.
mom daughter thinking
My daughter just thinks that all moms fly the Space Shuttle
air eggs atmosphere
The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so thin. We know that we don't have much air - we need to protect what we have.
thinking being-a-woman prove
I don’t think of myself as being a woman and having anything to prove,
military war airplane
Because of [Amelia Earhart], we had more women available to fly in the 1940's to help us get through World War II. And because of these women, women of my generation are able to look back and say, 'Hey, they did it. They even flew military airplanes, we can do it, too.'
believe space people
We want to explore. We're curious people. Look back over history, people have put their lives at stake to go out and explore ... We believe in what we're doing. Now it's time to go.
country people flying
Some people said, “we don't want to risk astronauts lives anymore, we need to stop doing this”. The astronauts don't feel that wayWe fly for our country, we fly for humanity, we fly for exploration, we fly for a variety of reasons, and we don't stop flying because we have accidents.
fantastic glad
We have had a fantastic mission. We are so glad to come back and be able to say it's a success.
ball catch hit move nervous quite spot throw whether
I was quite nervous about whether I could throw out the ball and hit it spot on. He didn't even have to move to catch it. I was quite happy.
flight human next universe
Our flight is the next flight of many in the human exploration of the universe .
bring full potential shuttle space station
Getting the shuttle back up there is just going to bring the space station back to its full potential.
ascent far flown
For those of us who have flown before , that was by far the smoothest ascent .