The pioneer who made history as NASA’s first female commander

This is the astronaut who broke the glass ceiling. And continued.

Eileen Collins made history as the first woman to pilot and command a spacecraft – but despite her remarkable achievements, not everyone knows her name.

Now, a feature-length documentary called Spacewoman, which chronicles her pioneering career, looks set to change that.

We meet Collins at the Science Museum in London. She speaks softly, warmly and very down to earth, but you quickly realize her focus and determination. She clearly has steel inside.

“I was reading a magazine article about the Gemini astronauts. I was probably nine years old and I thought that was the coolest thing. That’s what I want to do,” she says.

“Of course, there were no female astronauts back then. But I just thought I would be a female astronaut.”

But this little girl aimed even higher: she wanted to be at the controls of a spaceship.

And the only way to do that was to join the military and become a test pilot.

In the Air Force, she stood out and was selected to join the astronaut program. She was to pilot space shuttles – NASA’s reusable “space planes”.

She knew the eyes of the world were on her when she launched her first mission in 1995.

“As the first woman to pilot the space shuttle, I worked really hard for this because I didn’t want people to say, ‘Oh look, that woman made a mistake.’ Because it wasn’t just about me, it was about the women who followed me,” she says.

“And I wanted women pilots to have a reputation that was, ‘Hey, they’re really good.’

She was so good in fact that she was quickly promoted to Commander, in another space first.

Collins was also the parent of two young children. The fact that she was a working wife and mother was frequently brought up in press conferences at the time, with some journalists seeming surprised that she could be both.

But Collins says being a mother and a commander were “the two best jobs in the world.”

“But I will tell you, being a parent is harder than being a space shuttle commander,” she says with a laugh.

“The best training I ever received to become a commander was as a parent, because you have to learn to say no to people.”

NASA’s space shuttles, which flew for three decades, reached breathtaking highs, but also terrible lows.

In 1986, the Challenger spacecraft suffered a catastrophic failure seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members on board.

And in 2003, the shuttle Columbia disintegrated in the skies over Texas at the end of its mission, also killing its crew of seven.

A piece of foam insulation on the Columbia’s fuel tank broke away during launch, damaging the heat shield with devastating results.

Columbia was unable to withstand the fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, disintegrating as the world watched in horror.

Collins shakes his head at the memory of the disaster and the friends whose lives were lost.

But with her job as commander, she had to take over: she had to be responsible for the next flight of the shuttle.

Did she think about quitting at that point?

“Throughout the shuttle program, people relied on the commander to stick to it,” she said softly.

“I think leaving the mission would have been the opposite of courageous…and I wanted to be a courageous leader. I wanted to be a confident leader. I wanted to instill that confidence in others.”

But when his mission finally took off in 2005, the nightmare scenario repeated itself. A piece of foam came off during launch.

This time, however, a plan was in place to limit the damage. But that meant undertaking one of the riskiest maneuvers in space history.

Collins had to pilot the shuttle through a 360-degree turn as it flew beneath the International Space Station. This allowed colleagues in the orbiting laboratory to photograph the underside of the craft and check whether the heat shield had been broken.

“There were engineers and managers saying it couldn’t be done, and all these reasons why it was too dangerous,” she says.

“I listened to the discussion, they knew I was the commander, and I said, ‘Looks like we can do it.’

With her hands steady on the controls, her voice calm as she spoke to mission control, Collins piloted the craft through a slow, graceful somersault. With the underside of the shuttle now visible, the damage was quickly spotted and a spacewalk was carried out to repair it.

This meant that Collins and his crew would return home safely.

This was Collins’ last flight. She tells us that she had always planned to stop after her fourth mission, to give others a chance to go into space.

And she has seen many astronauts follow in her footsteps. Does she have any advice to give to the next generation who dream of stars?

“Do your homework, listen to your teacher, pay attention in class, and read books, and that will give you something to focus on,” she says matter-of-factly.

Those who follow Collins into space will learn all that she accomplished, not only as a woman, but also as a formidable pilot and commander.

She says she has no regrets about ending her astronaut career. She made her decision and hasn’t looked back. But there’s still a wistful look in her eyes when we ask her if she would be tempted if a seat on a spaceship became available.

“Yes, I would love to go on a mission one day. When I’m an old lady, maybe I’ll have the chance to go back to space.”