Eileen Collins

Eileen Collins loved airplanes from her earliest years. That passion put her on a path to become the first female commander of an American space shuttle. 

Collins, born in 1956 in New York, graduated with a degree in mathematics and economics from Syracuse University in 1978. She was admitted to the Air Force’s pilot training program at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma and later became the Air Force’s first female flight instructor. Collins was one of the first women to go to the Air Force test pilot school, graduating in 1990. She became an Air Force colonel and was selected as an astronaut in 1990. 

In 1995, Collins became the first woman to pilot a U.S. space shuttle when she served on the Discovery. She became the first woman to command an American space shuttle in July 1999, when she commanded the Columbia to deploy to the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

“When I was a child, I dreamed about space — I admired pilots, astronauts, and I’ve admired explorers of all kinds,” Collins said at a White House ceremony in 1998, where she was announced as the first female space shuttle commander. “It was only a dream that I would someday be one of them. It is my hope that all children — boys and girls — will see this mission and be inspired to reach for their dreams, because dreams come true.”

Collins retired from the Air Force and from NASA in 2005 and 2006, respectively. 

— Morgan Chalfant

photo: Bruce Weaver/AFP via Getty Images