Biography of Mike Collins

As pilot on the 3-day Gemini X mission, launched July 18, 1966, Collins shared with command pilot John Young in the accomplishments of that record-setting flight. These accomplishments included a successful rendezvous and docking with a separately launched Agena target vehicle and, using the power of the Agena, maneuvering the Gemini spacecraft into another orbit for a rendezvous with a second, passive Agena. Collins' skillful performance in completing two periods of extravehicular activity included the recovery of a micrometeorite detection experiment from the passive Agena. Gemini X attained an apogee of approximately 475 statute miles and traveled a distance of 1,275,091 statute miles--after which splashdown occurred in the West Atlantic, 529 miles east of Cape Kennedy. The spacecraft landed 2.6 miles from the USS GUADALCANAL and became the second spacecraft in the Gemini program to land within eye and camera range of the prime recovery ship.

Collins served as command module pilot on Apollo 11, July 16-24, 1969--the first lunar landing mission. He remained aboard the command module , Columbia, on station in lunar orbit while Neil Armstrong, spacecraft commander, and Edwin Aldrin, lunar module pilot, descended to the lunar surface in their lunar module Eagle. Collins performed the final re-docking maneuvers following a successful lunar orbit rendezvous which was initiated by Armstrong and Aldrin from within the Eagle after their ascent from the lunar surface. Among the accomplishments of the Apollo 11 mission were collection of lunar surface samples for return to earth, deployment of lunar surface experiments, and an extensive evaluation of the life supporting extravehicular mobility unit worn by astronauts.

Collins completed two space flights, logging 266 hours in space--of which 1 hour and 27 minutes was spent in EVA.

He left NASA in January 1970 and became the director of the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in April 1971 and was promoted to Under Secretary of the Smithsonian in April 1978.  He became Vice President, Field Operations, Vought Corporation, Arlington, Virginia, in February 1980. He later formed Michael Collins Associates, a Washington, D.C. consulting firm. Collins has written numerous articles and two books, Carrying the Fire and Liftoff, as well as a children's book, Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places.