Spacewoman with Eileen Collins

Sarah Al-Ahmed: 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 Spacewoman, 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.

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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 Spacewoman, 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: Hi. Well, thank you for interviewing me. This is great.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, I understand that you're also a Planetary Society member, and from quite a while back. When did you join?

Eileen Collins: Yes, I joined in 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. I was coming from upstate New York where we were lived down in a valley. We had a lot of fog, a lot of humidity. And I moved to Oklahoma where we had flat planes, 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. And Planetary Society I think was the first one that I joined. And 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 as inspired as I was. So it's been pretty cool, and I'm still a member.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: 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: Oh, you bet. It did.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: 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: 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 Gliderport. So near my home in Elmira, New York, we had Harris Hill Gliderport, 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, titles like, I'm sure if I can remember some, Fate Is the Hunter, which is about exploring in an airplane, and The Stars at Noon, which, like your grandmother, is a story of the women that flew. This was as far back as World War II. Women flew in, well, they ferried airplanes. It was called the Women Air Force Service Pilots.

And I read a book about Jackie Cochran, who was the woman that started the WASP. She struggled as a kid. She was dirt poor and grew up in the deep south. And she was able to, I want to say, become a successful businesswoman, and then she was able to start the Women Air Force Service Pilots. So reading books and having role models, men and women pilots, and people that explored, you really learn more about this great world that we live in. Discover the universe, I like to say. So that always inspired me. And I had a lot of passion for being an explorer and airplanes was just one way to do it. And so that's kind of how I got started.

Oh, and by the way, I should also add, I remember reading about the Gemini astronauts way back in the 1960s. I was a little kid, and I wanted to be just like them. They were engineers, they were test pilots. They were just the coolest people I had ever heard of. So way back then, I decided I wanted to be part of the space program, and here I am. It actually happened.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Right. I love to use some of the inspiration that you drew from your brother and the building of Estes Rockets when you were kids. So it was just such a fun detail.

Eileen Collins: That's right. That's right. We did. And in fact, you can still buy those Estes rockets today and build. You got to be careful, you got to follow the rules, but it's really fun to get the basics of rocketry by having a hobby.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I'm really glad that you had those resources, because clearly, your childhood was very difficult. And you say pretty early in the film that you didn't really try very hard in school because little boys would bully the girls that did very well in school. And I'm wondering how you went from that mindset to ultimately going to the library, learning all of this on your own, and ultimately becoming the commander of the space shuttle.

Eileen Collins: Yeah. Well, I think it's really just growing up. And I definitely do remember the smart girls in class were picked on by the boys. It was just kind of the culture of growing up in upstate New York. And I think what really got me out of that was going away to college. I think you're more independent in college. And then when I eventually joined the military, it was have a mission, be part of that mission. It's all about teamwork. It's about knowing as much as you can about whatever the system is that you're working on.

I really love that life of organization and knowing what was expected of you and knowing ways to measure success. And I learned that in the military as a pilot and eventually a test pilot in the military. And I just found that I thrive better in that environment. And of course, the world needs all kinds of people. I wouldn't say that I was the most creative person. I'm more of the engineering math brain, but that's why we have teams to bring those people together and pulling the talents of each member will bring that success. That's an important concept.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: It really is, and it really shows through your career. There have been some really challenging moments that you had to be very skilled in order to survive literally, but it really does take a team. And I think that this documentary does a really great job of exploring all the people around you and how it all led to your success.

Eileen Collins: Yes, definitely. And the teamwork involved. But I would say one of the things that, I want to say, contributed to my success was the fact that being the only woman in the room, or in my case, when I started pilot training back in... All the way back to 1978, when I started pilot training, I was in the first class of women to go through pilot training at my base in Oklahoma. Now there were four of us women, but there were over 500 pilots on the base. And we were the first four women there ever, but we were part of the test program, can women fly military aircraft.

So it was important for the four of us who we all love flying. We wanted to be pilots just like the guys, but yet we also had to succeed for the test program that we were in. Basically the goal of the test program was to determine if women can fly military aircraft the same way the men can, and we need to succeed for the generations of women to follow us. I mean, if we failed, that would have... I mean, I can't imagine why we would fail. It turns out that women fly airplanes just like men. There's really no difference. It's just that if that's what you are inspired by and that's what you want to do, you should be able to do that.

Turned out our numbers, our grades were just like the guys. Of course, the program was determined in the end to be successful. But I think for me, the lesson that came out of that is I felt like I needed to study more and try harder. I was in the simulator more often because I would go in at night by myself and practice. There were times I'd go out to the hangars, and I'd talk to the maintenance guys, they'd have panels off the airplane. I'm like, "What does the generator look like?" Or, "Let's look at an engine. Where are the turbine blades? Where are the compressor blades? And what do they do? Can you tell me from your perspective?" So I think the extra work that I did helped me do better than I would if I was just doing the minimum required.

I worked extra hard. I always wanted to be, if you remember the old Star Trek TV series I used to watch as a kid, Scotty would be back there in the engine room, and he like, "Captain..." Scotty would have the answer, and he would save the mission. He'd save the ship, the crew, and the mission, and that was what I wanted to do. When something broke, I wanted to be the person that had the answer. I wanted to at least have a suggestion, come up with a creative idea. So that's I think what inspired me.

And so I think if you find that you're the only person in the room, maybe the only woman in the room, or maybe the only one from a certain country, or maybe you're different in one way or the other, maybe that can work to your advantage. You try harder and you become the expert in something. So that was always the kind of person I wanted to be.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I love that. I always used to pretend to be Captain Janeway when I was a little girl, right? All of what you're telling me reminds me a lot of what I've heard from some of the early African American astronauts about that weight of representation. You don't just have to succeed, but you almost have to be extraordinary just so that other doors for other people don't close. And you actually mentioned that in the film, you said you have to be better than the men just to be equal. And I wonder if you think that that has changed much for women in modern day space flight.

Eileen Collins: Well, that's an interesting question because I think now we have more and more women astronauts. It has gotten to be, I want to say, it's 50/50. I don't think it has to be 50/50, but it's getting pretty darn close. In fact, the last class of astronauts that were hired by NASA had more women. I think the United States side of it, there were five women and three men, and NASA said, "Hey, we just hired the people that we needed, the skills we needed and the best people that we interviewed." And that was the way it fell out is we're not looking for quotas or anything.

It's definitely gotten easier today as far as the acceptance. You walk into the room as a woman, and people will look at you and they know there have been many successful women astronauts in the past regardless of their background, whether they were a pilot, engineer, scientist, doctor, some different types of science backgrounds that we're looking for. And people know that the women have done well in doing space walks, operating the robot arm. So it's not like you have to prove yourself as a woman anymore. You still have to prove yourself as an individual, as a competent person.

So you can't just skate. Astronauts don't do that because we know our lives are at stake and the missions that we fly and what we know can save our lives someday. So I think we, as astronauts, are more motivated by... There's a personal safety and risk management side of it. Of course, you don't want to have an accident in space where you have a family down on earth that loves you and wants you to come back. So I do think it is a little bit different, but I think there still are unique. And even for the guys. I'm sure guys have their unique issues too. I think we should all look at areas where that might be considered a weakness and turn them into strength.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: And I think both your book and this documentary do a really great job of not just showing how difficult it was to overcome those barriers in your own career, but also they both reveal these deeply personal details about your life. And I know that while you were going through this process of becoming commander of the space shuttle, you dealt with a lot of scrutiny, a lot of public attention because you are a woman in that role.

But now, at this point in your life, you're sharing a lot of the personal details about your human life at home, your life with your father, growing up in poverty, your daughter's struggles dealing with you going to space and her fear for you. And I feel like those personal details are just so valuable in inspiring others. What has the public reaction been to both your book and this documentary as people have been learning this other side of the hardships that you've overcome?

Eileen Collins: Yeah. So we have had some really interesting public reactions. Of course, we've been going around the country with Spacewoman for... It's been almost a year now. But the nice thing about going in person is we would do Q&A afterwards. Myself and my director, Hannah Berryman, would come in at the end of the film at many, many places around the country, and we would do 30 minutes of questions from the audience. People would come up to me afterwards and say the most interesting things.

For example, twice I have had men my age say to me, "I cried through the whole thing." And all I can guess... And I had one woman come up to me who was in her 20s and say, "That movie changed my life." And people would come up and say, "My father was also an alcoholic." And so I would ask them, "Are you glad that was in the film? Are you glad that you saw that?" And they always would say, "Yes, I'm glad that I saw that." And I think it kind of helps them maybe with understanding that they weren't alone in the struggles that they have had in life.

I think some of the people that said they cried in the film probably had alcoholic parents, or probably had children or maybe a spouse that was going through really scary times in their life, and maybe a military member who's deployed overseas and every day they're worried, "Is my loved one okay? What's going to happen to them?" It's kind of scary. But I think seeing Spacewoman has helped them, I think, cope with some of the, I want to say, fears and struggles in their life.

Another thing that we would explore, I would say, that kind of really came out in the Q&A based on a question someone asked is what you can and can't control. And I mentioned that in the film that if you are an astronaut trying to control everything, you're going to be miserable because you cannot control everything. You have to understand what you can control and spend your time on that. And then once you cannot control, you need to know what it is and you need to understand it. And you need to know how to be ready to react when something unpredictable happens.

And that's why in the space program we have flight rules, and those flight rules are... Normally those are used in mission control. And then for the crew, those flight rules are rewritten in the form of procedures and we take the procedures into space with us. And so if something unpredictable happens, I don't have control over a piece of space debris hitting my space station.

I know there's people on earth that track debris. It's our biggest problem in space. But once it gets to a very small size, say something the size of a quarter that you can't track, if it hits our space station and we develop a leak, I can't stop that piece of debris from hitting me. But yet, if it hits me, I have procedures that can find the leak. You put on your oxygen and then you take a look at, I want to say, the data that you have available to you that shows you where that leak is. We have flow sensors and pressure sensors and things like that, and you find the leak and then you plug the leak.

I think really based on the Q&A, this issue of what you can and can't control is something that I never was really conscious of in the years I was an astronaut. But now I'm very conscious of it. I think that's a tool that we can take in our lives every day to help control our stress. And by the way, a little bit off the subject, but we talk about deep space travel and sending people someday to Mars, or even as we go to the moon and we do long missions, and then we go to Mars and do even longer missions. The older I get, the more I get concerned about our crew, the people that we put together, how they're going to get along and how they're going to handle human nature in space.

I think this is going to be a very interesting problem that it's not like engineering where there's black and white right or wrong, but it's going to be more like, how do we put the right crews together and they will get along. And if someone starts having, hopefully not, but if someone starts having a mental issue, whether it's depression, anxiety or loneliness, how do you select people that won't have that? Of course, everybody does to an extent. And then how do you prevent it from happening, and then if it happens, how do you manage it? And I find this fascinating. And I really believe there's a role for people that study and deal with human nature as to how we're going to be living and working in space stations in deep space someday.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I think you're very right. I've had some very interesting conversations in recent months with the people that have worked on the Artemis program, and it is a huge concern for them as well. Because you can do everything possible to try to understand how your spacecraft is going to operate, but it is really the human mind and how it deals with the stress of long-term confined space travel that I think is something we're really, really going to have to explore. It's going to be very important if you're going to be stuck in a spacecraft together for six months on your way to Mars, let alone being there on the surface with no connection to earth.

Eileen Collins: Yeah. And I would add to that the role of sunlight in our lives. We learned during the pandemic the importance of getting out in the sun, because a lot of people were, they were quarantined, they were stuck inside. And if you don't have sunlight on your skin for a long, long period of time, that definitely I think has an effect on your mental state of mind. And for somebody in a spacecraft for a long period of time...

And again, that's just one example. There's so many more. How are we going to make sure that physically... We all talk about mental things, but I think the mental side comes from, there's a physical, I want to say, contributor to our mental state and things like having the right vitamins, eating the right food, and making sure that any potential... I mean, no human body is perfect. So even astronauts have little things here and there, I mean, I could say hangnail.

The problems astronauts have are pretty minor because you are screened before you go up in space, but maybe you'll get up in space and that minor problem will turn into something major. These are the kind of things that we're learning on the space station. And of course, our astronauts are up there for six, nine, 12 months without any sunlight. But we're starting to learn that light, even the bright lights that we go on when we're in quarantine to help sleep shift us, they have a major role in our mental state.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I mean, we need our people to be happy and healthy as we're doing these kinds of things, and especially you need people who can stay calm under difficult situations. And I think you've overcome so many things, but on top of that, you've dealt with some really, really challenging missions, right? Some of them went almost flawlessly.

I loved the part in the film where you were docking with Mir. And watching all the cosmonauts, waving their little doll at you, but also that wonderful international food party you had, that was such a fun detail. But then on the other extreme, you have situations like STS-93 where you ended up with a fuel leak on the way up, which must have been so difficult to deal with, not just as a person who was... This was your first command, but also you had the Chandra X-ray Observatory riding along with you. So there was so much going along with that. How do you just stay calm and compartmentalized in a really tough situation like that?

Eileen Collins: Yeah. Well, without a doubt, it's the training. And I believe in the astronaut office in the shuttle program and at NASA overall, the investment that we put into training, not just building the best simulators that costs money, but building the best simulators. We had a motion based simulator that we used for asset and entry with all the noise and the shaking and the lights flashing. During an ascent into space, you have got to stay focused on your instruments, your performance, how the engine's operating, are we going where we're supposed to go, what's our energy level.

And if you're distracted by all of these external cues, like the shaking, the lights flashing, the noise, it sounds like you're in a room on fire, those external queues need to be filtered out of your thinking. And the way we do that is by simulator after simulator years and years of this before. I mean, five years of simulators before my first flight in the motion base helped me screen all that out and just pay attention to what's changing, what's different that I haven't seen in my training.

I would say the fact that we trained malfunctions, and as astronauts, we knew how to identify what is the problem and then what procedure do I go to. And once you find the procedure, how do I execute that going through the steps quickly but not making a mistake. And I think all those years of practice is what helped me stay calm. Because honestly, if you just got in a space shuttle or any spacecraft and launched into space, and you started hearing bells and whistles going off and clacks ins, that would scare the life out of you.

So I found that in the situation you were talking about, we had an alarm go off and it was just normal for me to look at the emergency warning panel and see what's the light or what's the message. And I saw in that particular case a fuel cell 1-PH message that meant something's wrong with our fuel cell. But it turned out through our training, that's just a stray message because we actually had AC1 phase A electrical short. And what do we do with that? Well, we lost two of our main engine controllers. There were only three switches to throw and that was my pilot's job, Jeff Ashby, three switches, which basically just prevented our main engines from failing. And fortunately, none of our engines failed and we continued up to space.

Now separate from that, we had that hydrogen leak. I did not know that we had a hydrogen leak because it was so small it didn't come up on our instruments, but mission control saw it. And even if I knew there was a leak, there was nothing I could do to stop it. We're back into that what you can and can't control. I could not stop the leak. It was just all I had to do was think about if we run out of gas early and we have an early main engine cutoff, I am going to be in a lower orbit than I need to deploy this telescope.

Well, it turned out we did have what was called a low-level cutoff, and there were only two of them. In the entire 30 years of the space shuttle program, only two missions had what's called a locks low-level cut where we ran out of gas. There's four sensors in the fuel tank that we say when they go dry or they show that you're out of gas, they send a command to shut the engines down. So on that Chandra mission, we actually ended up in a lower orbit than we were targeting. Fortunately, for the Chandra Observatory, we had enough fuel in our orbit engines, the OMS engines, to circularize that orbit and get the telescope out on time.

Now I knew that I was responsible for that $2 billion telescope, that's what it cost to build it. It was probably worth more than that. And my crew. So myself and my crew were responsible for getting that telescope out, and we did. We got it out on time. And after that, it was like... It just weighed off our shoulders. And from that point on, it was really just the checks, the commands that were sent to the telescope. And which by the way, that Chandra had its own booster on it, which sent it a third of the way to the moon.

That Chandra Observatory was built for five years and it has been operating 25 years. And it is almost perfect. So the people that built that, and it was TRW at the time, built here in Southern California, they did a tremendous job. In fact, they took the lessons learned from the Hubble Space Telescope, which you might remember back in 1990 when Hubble was launched, its mirror was not... It was, I want to say, a little bit nearsighted and they had to put a lens on it via a spacewalk. And three years later, they did a spacewalk and fixed the Hubble.

Well, we weren't going to let that happen again with Chandra. So they put more money into end-to-end testing on the Chandra to make sure that when it got up in space it would be... Because you can't get to that Chandra. It's beyond the reach of our current spacecraft today to send a space walker there. We really can't fix it, so it had to be perfect. And thank goodness. I'm very proud of that mission, and I'm very proud of all the scientists and engineers that worked on it and still working on it today.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Isn't that remarkable? So many of these spacecraft or rovers, observatories, have just been living far beyond the lifetime we expected. I mean, the Voyagers are still out there, almost 50 years later, operating. It's absolutely wild.

Eileen Collins: Yeah. We got the New Horizons out there too, which went to Pluto, but now it's beyond Pluto. So every once in a while they turn that on and see what... I don't know what they're looking for out there, but it's still working great. It's nice to have that as we try to, I want to say, learn more about what is really beyond our solar system. So, fascinating.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We'll be right back with the rest of my interview with Eileen Collins after the short break.

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Sarah Al-Ahmed: But that was just one of the difficult missions you were on. I think the one that really had me on the edge of my seat was STS-114. It was right after the Columbia disaster happened. And you were commanding this space shuttle of Return to Flight, which could have dictated the entire future of the American Space Program. You ended up with an issue there that the creativity of this Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver with the International Space Station, and you literally having to fly that by hand to see what was going on on the underside. I had heard about it before, but seeing it captured on film and this documentary was just so visceral and it made me fear for you all over again.

Eileen Collins: Well, I'm going to say that our producers and our director, Hannah Berryman, and the editor, they did a fantastic job in telling that story about the Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver. And I really love the way they displayed it on screen. And just to give you a little bit of background, the Columbia accident was caused by a breach in their heat shield. They had a hole or a crack in their heat shield and it was under the wing where the astronauts couldn't see it. And as they returned home, the hot gases got into the wing. Basically it melted the aluminum under structure and the wing broke off and the Columbia tumbled out of control. And that happened at a very high Mach number. They were over Mach 10, around 200,000 feet. So no one could survive that.

So to get the shuttle flying again, there were many things we had to do, and one of them was, well, we need to know if there is a breach in our heat shield. So many great ideas, and the one about the Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver came from a very smart engineer. And he was courageous too to speak up. Prior to the accident, if he had recommended that idea of flipping the shuttle around, they would have thrown him out of the room. They said, "Get out of here. You're crazy." Well, we just killed seven astronauts, so we better come up with some crazy ideas here.

I was in the meeting where he came in and pitched his idea, and it was, as we approached the space station, why don't we just flip the shuttle around and expose the underside of the shuttle where the astronauts can't see, and have the astronauts on the space station take pictures, download the pictures, and mission control can look at them and see if there's any problems. A lot of naysayers are like, "You can't do that. The crew can't lose sight. That's going to be unsafe," and on and on. But it was a good discussion. And in the end, I suggested, why don't we just do it in the simulator and see if it works.

It was still a year away from our launch. So we developed this procedure, kudos to the Rendezvous engineers. They did a super great job in helping us as a crew refine this, and we did it. We did find some problems. There were a couple of gap fillers that had popped out between our tiles that required a space walk to remove them. And that was very successful. I like the way the movie Spacewoman shows how we did that. It was dramatic, yes. We did a good job of showing that in the film.

But the other interesting thing is every shuttle mission after ours until the end of the program did that Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver. And what would have originally been a crazy idea ended up being very practical. It cost almost nothing. It took an extra six minutes out of our closure time to the space station, which is really nothing, and it used a tiny bit of fuel. I'm really surprised that it was something that we didn't do all along. I like to use that as a lesson people can learn. Sometimes crazy ideas maybe aren't really all that crazy, and we shouldn't shut people down when they come up with something creative, and maybe discuss it, maybe try it a little bit in simulation. Maybe not all of them work out, but this one worked out. And I'm really proud of the team that came up with the idea and developed it.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: You should be. And to yourself for being able to actually pull off that maneuver in space, and everyone on the ISS and your crew that actually helped you basically save everyone's lives, that was just a beautiful display of the expertise of all the people that have worked on this.

Eileen Collins: Yeah. And by the way, my crew member, Steve Robinson, ended up having to go underneath the belly of the space shuttle during a space walk. It's never been done before. In fact, I don't think it's been done since until the end of the program. But he was on the end of the robot arm, which by the way, we had an extension to the robot arm to give us better angles to view. So he was on the end of this arm. And Wendy Lawrence was operating the arm. So she, we say flew him, she moved him underneath the shuttle, and he pulled out that gap filler.

Those things are only needed for launch. They're not needed to come home. And with that thing sticking out about an inch or two, the engineers were afraid as we came home in. I want to say the blast coming home through the upper atmosphere of the earth, and all the heat that the plasma, the heat that develops might have caused a tile to rip out so that gap filler would have pulled away and the tiles downstream could have come out putting a big hole in our heat shield. And so that's why we pulled those gap fillers out.

And by the way, there was nothing wrong with the gap filler itself. It was the glue, the process of putting that glue in there that they were not doing it right. The technicians were not doing it right. So they fixed that, and we never had another problem with it until the end of the program. But it's interesting, the millions of things that could go wrong on a space mission, the fact that everything goes right is just a miracle. A lot of it is experienced and a lot of it is really the care and the smarts of our engineers and technicians. And even that Artemis mission, the Artemis II mission that flew to the moon and back, I am just amazed that they had so little go wrong on that mission. And I think, again, a big tribute to the people that worked on it.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I absolutely agree. I mean, there were some minor issues right before launch, but everything, I mean, other than the toilet in space, went almost flawlessly. What was it like for you seeing the first woman fly to the moon, Christina Koch?

Eileen Collins: Yeah. Well, I think I would have loved to go, but I'm retired now. We kind of handed the baton off to the next generation. And the four crew, while they were very brave, that's all I can say. I mean, being the first humans to go out on a launch vehicle like that. Now, I will say the space launch system in the Orion capsule had flown once before on Artemis I, but they did have issues with their heat shield. And the crew had to be satisfied with the fixes that were made to their heat shield to ensure that they weren't going to have the same type of problems and maybe they could have a failure of their heat shield.

And that's pretty scary, I would say, considering what happened on Columbia, because that's what caused the Columbia accident. But the crew was, I would say satisfied, from an engineering point of view, that the changes that were made to their return trajectory was going to keep them safe. And it turned out that it did. Their heat shield came back in great shape. But I'm going to say they were brave. I'm really proud of the four of them, kudos to them. I'm sure they would all like to go back up and walk on the moon because they got to see the moon, but they didn't get to walk on the moons.

And by the way, it won't be too far in the future that we have footprints on the moon again, and I'm really looking forward to being part of that as a spectator. It's just going to be like our Apollo missions. It's so historical in humanity leaving planet Earth and settling in other parts of our solar system. I mean, I just can't think of anything more important that we do other than take care of planet Earth. We need to take care of our earth because this is our home. But it's so exciting to see us leave that home and go out and learn about the world that we live in.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: It really is. And I think it bodes well for the future of human space flight. It might take us a while to return humans to the moon and then make that jump to Mars. But we've been doing so well and have learned so many lessons along the way that... I mean, it's quite possible I'll see that in my lifetime, boots on Mars, and that's just wild.

Eileen Collins: Yeah. A lot of people promote going straight to Mars, and I find this a really interesting discussion. I like the idea of going straight to Mars because we get there faster. And a lot of people think, "Well, if we go to the moon before Mars, it's going to slow us down, it's going to cost a fortune." Well, yeah, that's true, but I think it will be so much more successful and safer by going to the moon with... We don't want to stay there longer than we need to, but we want to go to the moon to test the equipment that we will need on Mars.

I really think the biggest risk of going to Mars is not in the actual launch vehicles and the transfer spacecraft themselves, but it is in the life support systems. I think our propulsion systems we understand pretty well. I'm not sure we understand things like the carbon dioxide removal system, the water recycling systems. They're doing better all the time. On space station, we're able to recycle up over 97% of the water. On the space station, we have had issues with the carbon dioxide. The ones we tested were called CDRA, the carbon dioxide removal systems. The Russians have their own types of carbon dioxide removal. We're learning how to convert it back to oxygen.

These systems really have not achieved the reliability factor that I'm comfortable with, but they have to work on the moon. And one thing about the moon, testing it on the moon, and you'll say, "Well, we tested on the space station." Well, the moon takes it a little bit farther. We've got a little bit of gravity on the moon, we have dust on the moon, and we have a different type of radiation environment. There's more radiation on the moon than there is in lower Earth orbit, and then even more so on Mars.

Moon is not exactly the same as Mars, but I would call it a step-up kind of approach to testing that on the moon that is closer to the environment of Mars than the space station is. Maybe a buildup approach. I don't know if that's the right term to use. But what we learn on the moon with our life support systems for the astronauts is going to be extremely valuable and there will be changes made. I hope I'm alive, just like you said, I hope I'm alive to see boots on Mars. I would love for it to be me, but it's not going to be me. So I am going to join in watching and encouraging the astronauts, the very lucky ones that'll be able to go do it for the first time. And I'm going to tell you, they are going to have to be brave.

You can look back in hindsight on our Apollo astronauts and say, "Oh, look what they did." But they were very brave people flying to the moon with the technologies that we had in those days. And we had much less experience in space. So these were very brave people that went to the moon, and it's going to be the same way in the future with crews going to Mars. They're a lot farther away than the moon.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, luckily, we have wonderful role models like you and so many of the other people that have worked in the space program to look to in moments like that, because they are. They're going to have to be really brave to do it. And I'm wondering, looking at this documentary and the book that you've written, what is it like to see your life and everything you've been through reflected back to you through these mediums? Is it strange seeing your life pulled out this way?

Eileen Collins: Well, that's a really funny, interesting question because I actually learned a little bit about myself in watching Spacewoman. After I watched it the first time, I turned to my producer, Keith Haviland, and I went, "I don't think that was me." And he said, "Yes, Eileen, that was you." They took a lot of the... Because I don't think people realize, in between the dramatic things that happen in your life, there's a lot of boredom going on.

And even once you become an astronaut, you're not flying in space all the time. You're doing engineering jobs in between your flights, or you're working in mission control. I mean, that's exciting in itself. Or maybe you're working at Kennedy Space Center, helping get these launch vehicles off. Or you're doing engineering with the robot arm, maybe you're working on the medical side, maybe you're developing procedures on space walks or Rendezvous.

There's a lot of tedious work, there's a lot of bad days, there's a lot of setbacks. And in Spacewoman, a lot of the drama is brought out. So I think that's why I say I learn more about myself, and just bringing out the cool things that were done like, "Here's the launch. Here's that international meal that we had on the Mir Space Station." I'm like, "Yeah, that's right. I spent seven days on Space Station. That was pretty cool." And I think as I look back over my career, I think more about all the work in between the missions.

It's interesting that I also learned about my daughter who was interviewed quite a bit for Spacewoman, and her stories brought out quite a bit at the end of the movie and how scared she was about her mom flying that mission after the accident. So the Columbia accident happened in 2003, and my crew was the next one scheduled to go up after the accident. And I was happy that Massey kept me on as commander, and I flew as commander of the Return to Flight Mission. And all the work that went into that, and all the emotion and the back and forth, and the decisions, and the people that were involved in that, and I was pretty much buried in that.

But meanwhile, my daughter was scared about her mother going up in space, and she thought we were going to have another accident. Seeing that from my daughter's point of view and how that kind of strained our relationship, and she was only nine years old, but nine year olds are pretty conscious about what's going on. In Spacewoman, she said in her interview, she said, "I didn't trust the engineers. I didn't trust what they were telling us." I think I did trust them, but I'm not sure if I got that message across to my daughter and she was just really scared. And fortunately, her dad, my husband was with the kids the whole time. My son was, he was four years old, so he wasn't really old enough to really understand what was going on. But to answer your question, I think those are the two things that I think I learned is the amount of drama that really took place in my career, and the second one is how hard it was on my daughter to deal with the risk of a parent going into harm's way.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah. Sometimes it's really difficult, but we have to share ourselves and our loved ones with things that are greater than the both of us. And I think that this documentary really laid that out in a very human way. And I'm just so grateful that you were willing to not only tell this story in your book and in this documentary, but come on our show to share just a little snippet of the amazing things you've done in your life. I'm so grateful. So, thank you for being with us.

Eileen Collins: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the interview.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I was so fortunate to attend an early screening of Spacewoman in Hollywood, and what struck me wasn't just getting to meet Colonel Eileen Collins in person, though that was very profound. It was the room full of people around me, pilots, aspiring astronauts, aerospace engineers, NASA employees, and families of astronauts who had lived through similar struggles.

There were people in that audience who'd faced the same barriers that Eileen did when she was a young girl and families who understood firsthand the cost when someone you love goes to space. Her husband Pat was there too. And his unwavering support for Eileen's dreams, even through sacrifice and uncertainty, felt like a mirror of so many relationships I've seen in aerospace. And that's what this documentary does beautifully.

It validates Eileen's dedications of hard work and extraordinary achievements while also honoring the people that supported her along the way. It shows us that breaking barriers takes more than just determination. It takes the people around us, the ones who believed in us, the engineers and the scientists working to make missions possible, and the ones who live with the risks and the unknowns right alongside us.

And speaking of what it takes to reach those heights, I want to talk a little bit more about the path that Eileen took to the commander's seat. I'm joined now by Dr. Bruce Betts, our chief scientist for What's Up. We're going to talk a little bit about what distinguishes a space shuttle commander from a mission specialist and why that distinction mattered so much for Eileen's journey.

Hey, Bruce.

Bruce Betts: Hi there, Sarah.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Man, finally got to meet Eileen Collins. I'm really stoked about that.

Bruce Betts: That's great. No, she's pretty amazing.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Oh man, I understand that you got to meet her, but like ages ago.

Bruce Betts: Yes, back in we were both in elementary school chiseling into the stone tablets that our writing assignments were done on. But that's really cool that you've seen her recently, and I'm glad they're putting out a documentary on her. And that's great.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah, man, her life is so interesting. But I learned a lot about basically there were all these women that had been a part of the Astronaut Corps. And I had never really thought to ask myself why it took so long for when to become a commander and watching this documentary really helped me kind of understand it. So I figured we should probably explain that, because I don't think we talked about it in the interview with Eileen.

Bruce Betts: Oh, okay. I mean, the first women selected by the US for the Astronaut Corps, none of them were selected as pilot astronauts, especially in the shuttle days with the shuttle flying as a glider, or they said gliding properties of Iraq, but a glider. Basically the whole history, let's go further back. The history of the US Astronaut Corps and the Soviet Cosmonaut Corps were military and military test pilots. So they wanted people who had the same characteristics and that kind of psychological requirement stayed around.

When those first female astronauts were selected, they were all selected as mission specialists, which was one of the two major categories. And mission specialists do not fly the shuttle. They don't act as pilots, they don't act as the commander, and by NASA definition, at the time at least, the commander had to be one of the pilots. None of them were eligible because of who was selected. And obviously, there have been more and more female pilots moving through the military ranks and into test pilot land. So here you've started to populate, including with Eileen Collins, the pilot side of things. So once they get into that track, they would typically fly at least one mission as the pilot, and then eventually if they continued to fly missions as the commander.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Man, just thinking about that, being a test pilot, seeing all those videos of her as a young person trying to fly these ridiculous gliding situations with these super expensive test airplanes, I don't know. That's really cool, but also gives me more appreciation for the space shuttle. I mean, you can only land once, and if you mess that up, you messed it up bad.

Bruce Betts: They have an impressive selection of pilots that flew that and also they had automated systems as well, but the pilots were not just running the mill. I've got a hundred hours in a Cessna. These are people who had thousands of hours in high-performance aircraft and experience with pushing the boundaries of what could go wrong and what do you do to recover from it, which is a lot of astronaut training, even now presumably, which is you train for the problems. You don't train nearly as much for when things go right.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah. And man, things went wrong on so many of her flights. It's just absolutely harrowing watching that documentary. I mean, the fact that right after what happened with Columbia, they had that foam pop off the tank and hit the bottom of their shuttle, and flipping the entire space shuttle upside down so the ISS could see the problems. I don't know. I had heard some of these stories in the past, but actually watching them in a documentary, I am just so impressed with her ability to fly and everybody who made all those things work.

Bruce Betts: By the way, a lot of the mission specialists, including, I assume, some of the first female astronauts, certainly later on, a lot of them are pilots as well, and some of them with a lot of hours. They still tend to pick the ones who already were test pilots, but a lot of flying people. And if you are an astronaut, you do fly around in the T-38s, but there's always, at least the old rule was there's always a pilot astronaut even if the mission specialist is flying. But they want them to know the procedures and flying techniques as well.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Oh, that makes sense. I mean, something like those things can auto land. You want as many backup pilots as possible.

Bruce Betts: Yes, you do, but we should probably move on to Random Space Fact. Rewind.

So for those of you who want a quick quiz, who is the only astronaut to fly in all three of the United States first three human space programs, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo? Think about it.

The answer, Wally Schirra. Walter Wally Schirra, one of the Mercury Seven and also did Gemini and Apollo.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Man, can you imagine living through all of that, like seeing all of that and being there at that moment in history?

Bruce Betts: No.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: What a life, man. The more I talk to these people from the early era of space travel, just how brave.

Bruce Betts: Oh, yeah. I mean, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I agree with you, Sarah, wholeheartedly.

All right, everybody go out there, look up in the night sky and think about happy, happy flowers blooming in the sunshine and everyone feeling their best healthy self. Thank you, and good night.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We've reached the end of this week's episode of Planetary Radio, but we'll be back next week with more space science and exploration. If you love the show, you can get Planetary Radio T-shirts at planetary.org/shop along with lots of other cool spacey merchandise.

Help others discover the passion, beauty, and joy of space science and exploration by leaving a review and a rating on platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your feedback not only brightens our day, but helps other curious minds find their place and space through Planetary Radio. You can also send us your space thoughts, questions, and poetry at our email, [email protected]. Or, if you're a Planetary Society member, leave a comment in the Planetary Radio Space and our member community app.

Planetary Radio is produced by The Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by our members, including Eileen Collins. You can join us at planetary.org/join. Mark Hilverda and Rae Paoletta are our associate producers. Casey Dreier is the host of our monthly Space Policy Edition. And Mat Kaplan hosts our monthly Book Club Edition. Andrew Lucas is our audio editor. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which is arranged and performed by Pieter Schlosser.

I'm Sarah Al-Ahmed, the host and producer of Planetary Radio. And until next week, ad astra.