Eileen Collins: A Brief Biography

Throughout career as an astronaut, Eileen Collins achieved several firsts in the history of space travel. Collins was the first woman to command a space shuttle in 1999. Eileen Marie Collins was born on November,19,1956, in Elmira New York. Collins's earliest life visiting Harris Hills and watching planes fly off the ridge of the city. Another favorite memory is going to the local airport with her parents and watching planes take off. When Collins was nine years old, her mother and father separated. It was an emotionally difficult time in Collins's life, made only worse by economic hardship. Her father lost his job and mother was looking for one. Later on her parents found jobs. But there was still a little room for luxury life. Callins Wanted

After high school Collin enrolled at Corning Community College in New York, where she received an associates degree in mathematics in 1974. After college, she joined the Reserve officer Training Corps (ROTC). ROTC is a college based program that prepares people for advanced military careers. She got ROTC scholarship, after that Collins attended Syracuse University in New York and graduated in 1978, with bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics. U.S navy accepted women as pilots in 1974, the U.S. Air force did not until 1976. In 1978, when Collins set her sights on attending Undergraduate Pilot Training school at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma, she was one the first group of 120 females to apply. She was one of the four women chosen, rest of her classmates were men. After years of the training, the twenty-three-old Collins become the U.S. Air Force first female flight instructor. From 1979 until 1790 Collins taught how to fly in Oklahoma, California, and Colorado. she also served as an assistant professor of mathematics at the U.S Air Force Academy in Colorado Spring. 1986 Collins earning a master of science degree in Operation Research from California’s Stanford University. She also earned a master of arts degree in space systems management from Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri. After graduating in 1990,