Spacewoman with Eileen Collins

**Sarah Al-Ahmed** (0:03)
The first woman to pilot and command the Space Shuttle. This week on Planetary Radio.
I'm Sarah Al-Ahmed of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle, and the first woman to command one. She also led NASA's return-to-flight mission after the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Her life is now the subject of a documentary called Space Woman, and she's here with us today. And of course, we'll close out with Bruce Betts, our Chief Scientist, who joins us for What's Up. If you love Planetary Radio and want to stay informed about the latest space discoveries, make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the cosmos and our place within it.
When Colonel Eileen Collins was a kid in Elmira, New York, she dreamed of flying. She read books about pilots and astronauts and saved up her money from odd jobs to pay for flying lessons. She kept her dreams quiet, though, knowing that most people would tell her that she couldn't do it because she was a girl. In 1995, she piloted the space shuttle Discovery on STS-63, becoming the first woman to pilot a US spacecraft. That was the mission that made the first space shuttle approach to the Russian space station Mir. She returned to space in 1997 aboard Atlantis for a docking at the Mir space station. Then in 1999, she commanded Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-93, becoming the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. They deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which remains one of NASA's flagship space telescopes to this day. Her fourth and final mission, STS-114, was in 2005 It was NASA's critical return to flight mission, sending the shuttle back into space for the first time following the Columbia disaster.
But Space Woman, the new documentary written and directed by Hannah Berryman, tells a much deeper story. Based on Collins' book called Through the Looking Glass to the Stars, the story of the first American woman to command a space mission, co-written by Jonathan H. Ward, it explores not just her career achievements but her personal journey, the people that supported her, the hardships her family endured, and what it costs to reach for the stars. The film is now available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play and YouTube. Here's my conversation with Eileen Collins.
Hi, Eileen. Thanks for joining me.

**Eileen Collins** (2:45)
Hi. Well, thank you for interviewing me. This is great.

**Sarah Al-Ahmed** (2:49)
Well, I understand that you're also a Planetary Society member and from quite a while back, when did you join?

**Eileen Collins** (2:54)
Yes, I joined there about 1980 And just to give you some background, I had joined the Air Force in 1978, a long time ago, but they sent me to Oklahoma. And I was coming from upstate New York where we were kind of lived down in a valley. We had a lot of fog, a lot of humidity and I moved to Oklahoma where we had flat plains, clear skies at night and I discovered the beautiful night sky.
And that's when I decided to join every organization that had anything to do with space exploration in Planetary Society, I think was the first one that I joined. And, you know, I got your magazine. I always read it. And it was just really cool to know that there was a, I want to say a community of people out there that were as inspired about learning about space is inspired as I was. So it's been pretty cool and I'm still a member.

**Sarah Al-Ahmed** (3:46)
I love to hear that so much. I know it meant a lot to me to find that community of people that understood my love of space. So I hope that gave you a little bit of that community as you went off on your space adventures.

**Eileen Collins** (3:57)
Oh, you bet they did.

**Sarah Al-Ahmed** (4:00)
I think there's also another personal angle on this conversation for me, which is that my grandmother on my mother's side became a pilot when she was very young as well. And it was also in a time where it was not very normal for women to become pilots. What initially drew you to learning how to fly?

**Eileen Collins** (4:17)
Well, without a doubt, it was reading books. I did not have access to a lot of resources when I was a kid. My parents didn't have a lot of money. I couldn't get flying lessons. Although I will say my dad took us to the glider port. So near my home in LR in New York, we had Harris Hill Glider Port, which is also the location of the National Soaring Museum. And my dad would take us up there and we'd watch gliders take off and land. And that was kind of inspiring. So I think that really set the seed. But also my mother took us to the library and spent a lot of time in the library, but I eventually discovered the section on flying. And I read books with really dramatic titles, you know, titles like, I'm sure I can remember some, Fate is the Hunter, which is about exploring in an airplane. And The Stars at Noon, which, you know, like your grandmother's, the story of the women that flew. This was as far back as World War II.