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
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.
flight human next universe
Our flight is the next flight of many in the human exploration of the universe .
based best decision knew
We made the best decision based on what we knew at the time.
attention bit dangerous hardware learn listened mistakes paid reminding talking
Had we listened a little bit more and paid attention to the hardware that was talking to us, we probably could have prevented the accident. We need to learn from the mistakes we made ... I am continually reminding myself that we're in a dangerous business.
finest love people space truly worked
The people that I have worked with have just been superb, just the finest professionals, people who truly love the space program.
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 .
educated general
He was pretty educated about what we do in a general sense.
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.
commander matter mission whether woman
Whether your commander is a man or woman doesn't really matter when it comes to getting your mission done.