Michael Collins was born on October 31, 1930, in Rome, Italy, and went on to become a renowned American astronaut and test pilot. He was part of the third group of fourteen astronauts selected in 1963 and went on to fly in space twice. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10, where he and command pilot John Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins undertook two EVAs.
His second spaceflight was as the command module pilot for Apollo 11. While he orbited the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first manned landing on the lunar surface. Collins is one of only 24 humans to have flown to the Moon.
Before becoming an astronaut, Collins attended the United States Military Academy and then joined the United States Air Force, where he flew F-86s at Chambley-Bussieres Air Base in France. He was accepted into the USAF Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960 and unsuccessfully applied for the second astronaut group but was accepted for the third group.
After retiring from NASA in 1970, Collins took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later, he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum, a position he held until 1978 when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980, he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace and resigned in 1985 to start his own business.
Collins was married to Patricia until her death in April 2014 and had three children: Kate, Ann, and Michael, Jr.
