So Eileen,
what makes a good astronaut?
Commander Eileen
Collins. Getting suited up
for the third time.
I would say a person
who is not prone to panicking.
An astronaut is a person
who does not fear problems,
but yet sees
problems as challenges
and something that's,
frankly, exciting.
And here you see
Eileen being strapped into
the commander seat.
The real essence
of a person comes through when
something different happens
than what's in the script.
On this flight,
the right stuff in the pilot's
seat is a gender change.
For the first time,
the shuttle pilot is a woman.
Ask friends and
family about Eileen Collins,
and they'll tell you
she's down to earth.
Main engines now started.
It's just she's always
dreamed of leaving Earth
far behind.
In a way, it's going
to be hard to come home
because I do like
being in space so much.
It feels almost
natural to be up here.
I mean, you're just a kid,
like from the projects,
essentially, right?
And because people think,
oh, this,
a rich family, go to Yale--
no but it's true, people,
but it's true.
And you wanted to do this
and you did it and now
you're the--
Yep. That's true,
and I love it. I couldn't be
doing a better job.
- Commander. Thank you.
- Thanks.
Eileen Collins!
And her baby girl
standing up for mommy.
I never saw her
display or show fear.
Then over there is
the newest commander for NASA.
To some degree,
you're rolling the dice.
About ready to go.
And there's a lot
of risk that you can't manage.
Since the space
shuttle Columbia broke up
during re-entry
back in February,
there have been serious
questions over the future
of manned spaceflight.
NASA is determined to get
the program back on track
and would like to launch
another shuttle in the autumn.
In charge will be
Colonel Eileen Collins, who
was the first woman to pilot
and the first woman
to command a shuttle.
We had an accident, we had,
frankly,
we've had two accidents.
But we are people
that believe in this mission
and we're
going to continue it.
The trust, to put
your friends back on board and
throw them into the sky.
All of the risk
was now on them.
Eileen was
leading the charge back
into space.
We are go for launch.
Okay Eileen,
our long wait may be over.
The space shuttle
program was riding on it.
The whole American space
program revolved around this
return to flight,
and so it had to go well.
Six, five,
three engines up and burning.
Three, two, one...
and liftoff
of Space Shuttle Discovery!
Discovery has gone.
All she needs to do now is
come back.
Just in the last few minutes,
NASA has told us about
a possible debris event.
I'm thinking about
things that could go wrong,
that I have control over,
something that could go wrong
that I have no control over.
I'm not going
to think about that.
She would tell me to hope
for the best,
but expect the worst.
And I don't think
that she intended for that
to come across
as intensely as it did,
but a seven-year-old
version of myself
was like, "Mom is
going to die in space."
And I need
to be ready for that.
I grew up
here in Elmira in the 1960s.
It's a very quiet town. Was
mostly working-class people.
There's not a lot
of things here to do.
Elmira is
famous for many people.
Tommy Hilfiger, Mark Twain...
Eileen Collins.
There should be more things in
this city named after
Eileen Collins.
- But she doesn't want...
- Well, I'm not dead yet, so.
In school,
I was painfully shy.
I stuttered very bad.
I was cut from the choir.
I tried out for cheerleading.
Never made
the cheerleading team.
I was mediocre in class
because the boys picked on
and bullied the girls that
were smart,
so I didn't try.
Eileen Collins
found inspiration at home.
Her mother worked
as a prison secretary,
raised her four
children in public housing,
used food stamps
to make ends meet.
I've never seen one live -
a launch - but watching
them on TV,
I think, oh, now
my daughter's gonna do that.
Eileen loved going out back.
Out back of where we lived.
To the creek.
It was a place to
explore and have adventures.
I liked everything
my brother was doing.
He had chemistry sets, rockets.
It's coming this way!
The stuff he watched on TV.
- The space shows.
- Lost in Space.
You know, it might
have been the way they
presented it as an adventure.
In every revolution,
there's one man with a vision.
I always wanted
to be Captain Kirk.
You know, I wanted to, like,
be the commander
of the starship.
Elmira, New York,
is one of the finest
gliding spots
on the face of the Earth.
Back when I was a kid,
Elmira was known as the
soaring capital of the world
because the conditions
here are perfect for flying.
So our dad would
put us in the car and say,
"Let's go to Harris Hill
and watch the gliders take off
and land."
I was inspired by flying.
There's a sense of escape.
There's somewhere you can go
to get away from life's
problems, right?
But I didn't tell anybody
I wanted to be a pilot.
Or that I wanted
to be an astronaut,
because I knew
they were going to say,
"You can't do that.
You're a girl."
I did have these dreams,
but the reality was
I didn't have the money
to go take flying lessons.
No one's going to give me
a loan. I'm a teenager, right?
So I picked up
many part-time jobs.
I worked at my church.
I worked
at a miniature golf course.
I worked at my school. I was
a janitor in my high school.
I worked at a pizza parlor.
I was a hostess in
a housewares store.
I knew I needed about $1,000
to get a pilot's license.
And when I hit $1,000, I think
I was about 19 years old.
In my life, I was
never really good at sports.
But I was good at flying.
I could hit altitudes, I could
hit air speeds, I could land.
I was lucky enough that
at the time, the Air Force was
trying to determine
if women could fly
the way men fly.
There are no problems with the
jets taking off and landing
at a U.S. Air Force Base in
Arizona,
even though some of the airmen
had qualms about the new breed
of jet pilot, called women.
I hope that I have no doubt
that I can measure up,
but it is very demanding.
I was 21 years old,
right out of college,
and I was in the first group
of women that had ever
attended pilot training
at Vance Air Force Base
in Oklahoma.
Initially,
the sight of a woman suiting
up raised a few eyebrows.
Male pilots had doubts that
the women were strong enough
and quick enough
to handle supersonic aircraft.
B-b-baby you just
ain't seen n-n-nothing yet
I also had a career strategy,
which was I'm never getting
married.
Of course I dated,
I had boyfriends, but I did
not want to get married
and have my husband tell
me you can't be an astronaut.
Well, I was in a flying
squadron on the west coast,
and we flew long missions,
so sometimes gone for three
weeks or more.
So I'd heard that this woman
pilot came in who was pretty
attractive.
I asked her out like,
ten minutes after I met her.
Yeah.
He walks up to my desk
and says, "Would you like
to go to dinner tonight?"
I go, you
don't waste any time, buddy.
She says that I was
a half hour late for our date
because I was playing golf,
which I believe is untrue.
Did you
ever want to be an astronaut?
Not really, to be
honest with you.
But, but when I met Eileen,
of course,
that was a big goal of hers.
I went off to Stanford
to get my master's degree.
He went on to become
a Delta Airlines pilot,
and I could see as
the months and years went by
that this was going to work.
I saw in the news
that NASA had hired
the very first space shuttle
astronauts,
which included six women.
Now the space shuttle
program had pilots and mission
specialists.
Lieutenant Commander Daniel C
Brandenstein, who is a pilot.
To be a space shuttle
commander,
you had to come in as a pilot.
And that's because
of the design of the shuttle.
It was the first rocket that
was ever going to fly like
an airplane.
Judith Resnik,
a mission specialist.
The mission specialists
uniquely did spacewalks,
science experiments.
Sally Ride,
a mission specialist.
All of those first
women astronauts were mission
specialists.
None of them were
eligible to be the commander.
And I specifically remember
thinking, that's exactly what
I want to do.
I came
on board the shuttle program
about the same time as
the first group of shuttle
astronauts were selected,
which included six women.
That was quite an adjustment
for some of the old guys,
and some of them
did not do well and left.
But the first six women
were not military pilots.
They did not fly
high-performance aircraft in
their previous job.
And you didn't just
take somebody off the street
and put them in
charge of the shuttle.
It was designed
as a taxi into space.
1000ft.
If you wanted
to fly it,
it really was felt necessary
that you had
to have that pilot experience.
And they didn't want just
a little pilot experience.
They wanted a lot.
Thousands of hours in high
performance jets.
Main gear. Touchdown.
I was told
you're not really competitive
to apply
to the astronaut program
unless you're a test pilot.
So I set my sights on getting
into the Air Force test
pilot school.
And I was fortunate enough,
after three tries to be
accepted.
The fastest
school in the world,
the United States Air Force
flight test school,
from whose doors,
upon graduation, come the men
destined to push back
the frontiers of aeronautical
knowledge.
I guess you would say the
culture was stuck in the past.
That, that's
a good way to describe it.
Initially, probably there
were some guys who just said,
you know,
"You don't belong here".
She had to be very confident.
It's been a man's world
for a long time.
A lot of testosterone
in the c*ck.
To find out how
important this big little
school is.
See what it
does for this pilot.
His name is Roy Jones,
and he's come to join a new
class that's just starting.
Helen is typical of the wives
of these students.
Again,
it was almost all men,
but I was going to be
the senior ranking officer in
the class.
I thought the school
commandant would say,
"Congratulations on coming
to the school. We're looking
forward to having you here."
No, he made eye
contact with me and said,
"Is your husband
going to run the Wives Club?"
Then I said, "Yes,
I'll ask him. I'll get back
with you."
She came home
and she said, you know,
"Boss asked that question,
what do you think?"
And I said, "I have no
issue running the wives club.
We'll play golf on Wednesdays
and have lingerie shows on
Saturdays."
So, so that that
booted me out right away.
Roy's interest in his
work is beginning to rub
off on you,
isn't it, Helen?
Well, the Air Force
made a recruiting video
where Roy was
the ideal Air Force pilot.
And the wife is perfect.
So we decided that we would
make the 1989 version of Roy
and Helen.
Except Eileen is Roy,
and Pat is going to be Helen.
What a gal. You have
changed, haven't you, Helen?
I mean, in a way,
you swapped the traditional
roles, didn't you?
I did. I didn't know where her
career was going to take her,
but I could follow Eileen
around and see what happens.
Well, this is it.
I have so many memories here.
This is my life. In boxes.
This is my pilot logbook.
I flew, I don't know,
maybe 28 different types
of aircraft that year.
And when we fly these
airplanes,
we live on the edge of danger.
Put it that way.
As test pilots we
have to push the envelope
so we can define where is it
safe for this airplane to fly.
I flew the F-111,
which is a supersonic jet.
I also flew the TR-1.
It flies up to 60, 70,000ft.
Full pressure suit, which,
you know, gave me an idea
of what it was like to fly
pretty much at the edge
of space.
Every test pilot gets one ride
where we simulate space
shuttle landings.
And you can
do that in the T-38.
You climb it up
to about 23,000ft.
You pull the power off
the engines and you start
the very steep dive.
In fact, it looks like
you're doing a dive b*mb.
You're looking straight down.
When you reach about
3000ft above the ground,
you just slowly
start pulling the nose up
to make sure that you touch
down exactly 2500ft down
the runway.
My instructor said to me,
"When this flight is over,
I'm going
to call the astronaut shuttle
commander and tell him how
you did."
He wanted to put that pressure
on me, but if anything,
it made me focus
more and do a better job.
And the flight went great.
I started as
the key person covering
the space program
for the Associated Press
back in 1990,
which is the same year that
Eileen Collins was accepted as
an astronaut by NASA.
So what better way to,
introduce yourself
than to write about
some new astronauts
who had come on board, right,
that were out of the norm?
Because even then there were
very few women in
the astronaut corps,
even as scientists, right.
How many of you have piloted?
Most of you are passengers?
That's good.
And so here we
had our first female pilot.
NASA were looking for people
who could keep their cool,
who were just like,
born for this sort of thing.
The right stuff, as we
all would have, you know,
talked about back then,
because sometimes things crop up
that take nerves of steel
to be able to control.
And did
Eileen have nerves of steel?
Oh, she sure did.
Believe me, anybody who's ever
strapped into the space
shuttle, it took courage.
The question comes up about,
have I ever felt fear, myself,
in space?
I'm not sure that I
would use the word "fear".
Kids feel fear.
Afraid of the dark. Afraid
of the monster under the bed.
In my case, it was
my dad coming home drunk
and getting into
a fight with my mom.
My dad's family,
the Collins family,
their heritage is
from County Cork, Ireland.
They came here to Elmira
because this is where
the work was.
This is the Collins house.
They all lived here.
And they lived rough lives,
smoking and drinking.
My dad was 27 years
old when he married my mom
and his family started a pub,
the Collins Pub.
He was a very wise man,
and I attribute that to being
in the bar for so many years
because bartenders
listen to people's problems.
But something in
him needed to drink.
It was unpredictable. That was
the scariest thing about it.
You never knew
what you were going to get.
There was one
time my dad came home.
My mom locked him out
and he was knocking on the
door, and he broke the glass.
And his hand went
right through the glass.
And we were hiding
under the bed upstairs.
What he would do
is keep you up all night.
Like I remember,
it'd be midnight, 1:00, 2:00,
and I'd try to go to bed
and he'd say, "Sit down."
"Sit down." And you'd
sit at the table and he'd be,
one beer after another
and he'd be talking,
getting it all out and--
Lecturing us to make sure
that we knew what life's...
- about life.
- That's when
we learned about life.
Listening to our dad when
he was drinking.
I learned a lot
about the way men think.
Which is part of the reason
why I was always so good
working with
men later in life.
We're going to put you
through a controlled ejection.
We're gonna fire you up
the rail about oh, 8-12ft,
somewhere in
that neighborhood.
Just remember your greatest
onset of Gs is in the first...
You know, Eileen,
coming from the military,
she was used to being
surrounded by men and dealing
with men.
But I remember she once told
me you had to be better
than the men
to be equal.
Better dial down
the pressure for this one.
In the training simulations,
we would practice launch after
launch, landing after landing,
all the things
that could go wrong.
The goal was to trip up
the crew members and make them
do the wrong thing.
"Helium pressure 2, open"
Eileen seemed
very competent, very calm.
The top edge should be open.
It was really hard to trip
her up. She knew her stuff.
I became
aware of the space shuttle
when I was doing my PhD
in physics here in Cambridge.
When I joined NASA, I was a
mission specialist astronaut,
a scientist.
When the first woman pilot was
selected, and that's Eileen,
I look at Eileen and I think,
this is a big deal.
The crew can k*ll
themselves in the shuttle.
Just the wrong action in these
particular scenarios
of emergency
that we were practicing.
Eileen only has
to move her hand, you know,
three centimeters over to the
left and separate the tank,
and we're all dead.
If she separates the boosters,
we're going to live.
- Filmin'?
- Yep!
We begin
tonight with an American
dream, the space race.
There was a time, 30 odd years
ago when the goal of NASA,
the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration,
was simple.
You beat the Russians.
But things have
certainly changed.
The Cold w*r was over
and for our mission,
we were told
that we would be the first
Americans to see the Russian
space station Mir.
Now "Mir"
means peace in Russian.
A lot of American
astronauts were very doubtful
about having the Communist
pilots come and fly on
the space shuttle.
Men would go, "Oh,
this is all preposterous"
you know, they'd make grumbly,
grumbly noises.
Eileen was always pretty cool,
actually. She never objected
quite like the men did.
You can see the orange tank,
the rocket boosters.
Colonel Collins,
I know you're
an accomplished pilot.
How will piloting the shuttle
be different than everything
you've done before?
Well, Katie, this is actually
a dream come true for me.
I've been flying
since I was 19 years old.
And it seems like I've
always wanted to go higher.
I've always wanted to go
faster and farther than I
ever have.
Husband Pat
is also a pilot.
She's ready and I think she,
you know, she's chomping
at the bit to do it.
Oh, picture. Hello!
I remember
Pat was happy for me.
There might be a little
bit of caution on his part.
You know, with him being
a pilot,
he knows the risks involved.
But I was
willing to take that risk.
I'm at the Kennedy
Space Center, in my office,
three miles
from the launch pad.
It was incredibly
exciting, right?
You know, finally, we're
seeing a woman in the c*ck.
There probably were some
men in the astronaut office
who would have preferred
not being on those flights.
The whole idea of having
a woman at the controls was,
at the time, hard
for some at NASA to digest.
The launch is going
to go shortly after midnight.
I didn't eat anything because
I thought I might get sick.
It's true.
Looking at the shuttle at night.
It's just overwhelming,
brilliant light.
It's one of the most
incredible things that I've
ever seen.
And I'm thinking, I'm going
to launch on that thing. Okay.
Watching the clock count down.
That's when your heart starts
beating.
MISSION CONTROL [On radio]:
Discovery crew OTC,
close and lock your visors.
Initiate O2 flow,
have a good flight.
Mission controllers are
responsible for the safety
of the crew.
The most important thing
is to be cool in a crisis.
So not high emotion.
- Absolutely not.
You know, a lot of the cinema
you see of people in
Mission Control,
they launch the rocket.
- Everybody stands
up and cheers.
-
When I was a flight director,
we would fire anybody that
did that.
You have to keep
your emotions in check
and be ready
for whatever might happen.
Main engines now started.
3, 2, 1.
At T-0,
the boosters light, it starts
vibrating and shaking.
And it sounds like
you're in a room on fire.
We like to describe it
as a controlled expl*si*n.
And liftoff
of Space Shuttle Discovery
on a mission to prepare
for the next era of world
cooperation in space.
- Liftoff confirmed.
- Copy liftoff.
The shuttle
accelerates extremely fast.
If you watch an Apollo launch,
we accelerated much faster.
For the next 72 seconds,
you're watching the speed
build up.
Discovery already traveling at 700mph.
Then you think of Challenger.
Just for a fleeting second.
Oh my gosh!
The accident that had blown up
the shuttle happened at 73
seconds after liftoff.
No one's saying
anything in the c*ck.
Everyone really just
sort of held their breath
during the 8.5 minutes the
shuttle takes to reach orbit.
Discovery rolling on
course for orbit with the Mir
space station,
Mir currently half a world
away above the Indian Ocean.
The whole shuttle
stack accelerates to 3Gs.
Until MECO.
M-E-C-O. Main engine cut off.
And we're in orbit.
I said, well,
"Congratulations, Eileen."
"You survived the launch"
is really what we said.
You know, you survived
the launch and so now we
can relax.
Mike Foale, my flight engineer
said, "Eileen, Eileen,
stop working so hard.
Look out the window. It's your
first sunrise from space."
Once it launched and I
went back to the hotel,
you know, I opened
the sliding doors and you
could hear the ocean roar in
Cocoa Beach there,
and, I couldn't believe that,
actually, how much anxiety I
had built up.
You know, I'm a pilot.
I know what could happen.
It was like, phew.
I was like, wow,
you know, thank you, God.
You know, back then you
thought if you launched okay,
you were good, you know.
You're the only
space rookie on this flight.
Has it been all you thought
it would be, Colonel Collins?
Well, it's been
more than I expected.
There's a lot of things
that are going on up here.
On the first day,
you feel a lot of changes
when you go into zero gravity.
Looking out the window,
you see the Earth from space,
and that's, just beautiful.
In the space shuttle,
you go around the Earth once
every 90 minutes.
So the wake up time changes
to a different time every day.
You would always wake
up with the wake-up music.
But the crew did not pick it.
The spouses
and the training team,
and sometimes the flight
controllers would pick
the wake-up music.
And we were
supposed to be surprised.
Good morning, Discovery.
Well, I guess
we have to wake up now.
We first picked
the Russian space station Mir
up on radar.
I remember Mike Foale looking
out the window and yelling,
"There it is! I see it,
I see it."
And when we got close enough,
we could see that it
looked like a dragonfly.
For the Mir
rendezvous part of it,
the pilot's very active,
and she plays a major role
in piloting the space shuttle
to that close approach.
They had to keep
a certain distance away.
And as I recall,
the Russians wanted it at
first to even be farther away.
And you can understand,
you know, you don't want
to touch, right?
It'd be like two airplanes
touching on, you know,
a take-off.
Ok Eileen,
you are go to approach
to ten meters.
EILEEN [Archive]:
Roger.
We got down to 30ft.
There were three cosmonauts
on board, and in fact,
they put a little doll in
the window and they were
shaking the doll at us.
We waved at the Mir,
and we saw Elena Kondakova
over there waving at us.
Speaking to us in Russian.
EILEEN
Dobryy den, eta Eileen.
MAN [in fluent Russian]:
Dobryy den, Eileen.
But none of us spoke Russian,
except our cosmonaut Vladimir.
None of us
understood what he was saying.
So he could have been
giving all of the space
shuttle secrets
right there
and then to the Mir.
The rendezvous
of the Space Shuttle Discovery
and the Russian space station
Mir was an incredible
accomplishment.
A deep-space ballet involving
two 100-ton spacecraft moving
in tandem
at 17,500 miles an hour.
EILEEN [Archive]:
I want to say that Mir
is very beautiful,
and it was very shiny,
and we were very
happy to meet you in the sky.
I feel like I
weigh about 5 times...
After the mission, you
know, a month or so went by
and I discovered
I'm going to have a baby.
How are you, Bridget? How
are you, little one?
How are you? Yeah, sweetheart.
Bridget was
born in November of 1995.
A little past nine
months from my mission.
And she was
just the best baby.
- Good morning! Good morning!
- That's Mommy
with Bridget.
Mommy hasn't done her hair
yet, so she won't let me take
too many pictures.
Well,
being a mother changed a lot
because I'm thinking about
this small human baby that I
am responsible for.
In addition to my job.
Zoom, here
comes the airplane! Zoom!
But you do get back to normal.
The key thing is
to get into a routine.
And don't let
the baby run your life.
And this is a rare sight
where you get to see Mom.
Late for work again.
This is July 16th
1996, the six-year anniversary
of Eileen being an astronaut.
But let's talk
about little girl Bridget.
My parents are yin and yang.
My dad is the funniest,
most relaxed person.
And my mom is,
she's not uptight,
but she is serious.
And very procedural.
- There's my baby.
- Row, row,
row your boat...
There's our little car.
Merrily,
merrily, merrily...
Okay, we're
signing off for a little bit.
I always tried to keep
my kids engaged in what I
was doing,
whether it was bring them
in the office occasionally
or take them
out to the simulator,
maybe take them to the pool to
show where we train out there.
My teachers used
to ask me if my dad did
my hair going into school,
and sometimes my clothes
would be on backwards.
It was typically
dresses because that was easy,
and my hair was
quite short because--
I always wanted long hair
and I was not allowed to have
long hair,
because my mom was like,
"Bridget, I don't, like,
I'm not going to be doing
your hair."
My second flight,
again I was the pilot,
but this time,
we're gonna actually dock with
the Russian space station.
One of my crewmates thought
that we should learn
the Cosmonaut song.
So we got a recording,
and I had it in my car
and I would play it
to Bridget in the morning
while I took her to daycare.
And I tried to get her
to learn the lyrics which were
in Russian.
I do not
remember the Cosmonaut song.
But I do remember
the Russians teaching me
to count in Russian.
It was my second
mission, but it was the first
time as a parent.
So it's going to be hard
to be separated from Bridget.
It was around midnight that
we were going into quarantine.
So the last time I saw
Bridget,
I was putting her to bed.
And I remember telling her,
you know, "Mommy is going
to go into space."
You know, "I'll be
coming back in a week".
I'm not sure how
much she understood.
But I knew she was going
to be well taken care of.
On STS-84 I
was the flight director,
and all of us in the shuttle
program were very
nervous about
being able to actually
execute, being able
to actually do this thing.
EILEEN [Archive]:
Charlie's got us dead center
in the corridor
and excellent comm with Mir.
Docking confirmed.
When we went inside
of Mir, all of your senses
were affected
by the experience that you
were having.
It was more musty. It was more
humid than the space shuttle.
It's like going through
the intestines of something.
It's been there for years.
There's all kinds of junk
in there.
And then you smell hot food,
you know, meat and potatoes.
And the disco music was
playing, and it was quite
extraordinary.
The transition
from apprehension to, oh,
this isn't too bad.
We decided
to have an international meal.
We had some
barbecue from Texas.
There's a Russian tradition
where women offer bread
and salt to the travelers.
On the Mir, Vasily and Sasha
had organized little
Hovis loaves.
But then Eileen says, "No,
we've got something better."
And she brought out
these chocolate shuttles.
I think we really
built a good relationship
with the Russians on a people
level, cooperating in space.
And I'm aware of how
quickly that can be lost.
Ok guys...
We'll be in touch soon.
Spasiba.
EILEEN
Towards the end
of the flight,
most of my work was done,
so I had time to look out.
You can put your face
right up against the window
and stretch out your arms like
you're an angel flying over
the planet.
The sun was rising
over the Atlantic Ocean.
It was totally clear.
We could see all the way down
to Florida, where my family
was waiting for me.
Hi Bridget, hi! Remember me?
She doesn't recognize my hair,
Pat. [Laughs] My hair is
too big.
- I'm up in space.
- She heard you.
She's up in space.
I'm
flying around the Earth.
See, she sees you.
- Look at that,
she's waving now.
- She's waving.
I'm
a little bit sleep deprived.
I'm not sure when you
come home that's going to get
any better.
Bridget. Let's wave
to Mommy and say goodbye.
We'll see her in two days.
Yeah, maybe she'll
talk to me now.
Let's see if I can get her
to say bye.
- Bye.
- Oh, you hear that?
- Bye, Bridget--
- She said "bye".
Say it again.
That was great.
- See the sunrise?
- Yeah, I see it.
On the re-entry
to the atmosphere,
I was always nervous.
I don't care who it is.
Re-entry is risky.
We always wanted to give
the shuttle crew good weather
for landing.
It's just a glider
that's got no power.
So you are going to land
the first time or you're going
to crash.
EILEEN [Archive]: Keep flying
the instruments, 8000ft,
there's the runway.
That looks really good.
There is no go
around capability.
There are no engines on the
shuttle that can, you know.
"Oh, I don't like
the way this is set up."
EILEEN [Archive]:
4000ft, looking good.
You get one shot.
And only one shot.
- EILEEN [Archive]:
200ft. Ball bar.
- 100 ball bar.
100ft.
Gears down, 80, 70, 60...
230 knots.
Keep it coming down. 220.
210, looking good, 8, 6,
5, 4, 3, 2, 200, touchdown.
ASTRONAUT [Archive]: Houston
Atlantis we have wheel stop.
Copy wheel stop
and we'd like to offer
a congratulations on
a flawless flight.
There's Bridget!
To some degree,
it was surprising when
she came back.
- You're my prisoner.
- Mommy's the best.
I do remember I definitely
wanted her there more.
It's like, Mom is doing
this thing for the country
and that's what comes first,
is loyalty, duty, honor.
Alright.
Okay!
There's Mommy, there's
Bridget, there's Stacey
and we're
celebrating Stacey's birthday!
Stacey's birthday.
It must have been
difficult at times for her
to juggle the home life.
You know, just as it is for
any career woman, you know?
Look at Mommy's hair.
It looks really good.
Stop, I just flew, so...
I would think even
more so for Eileen
at the time,
because she had
the extra pressure
of knowing that everybody is
watching every move she makes.
You know, would
a woman crack under pressure?
Could you put your
emotion to the side enough
to do the job properly
so you all get back alive?
Jack and the Beanstalk!
Jack and the Beanstalk!
My mom behaves in a way
to try to keep things under
control to the best of her
ability.
There's never any yelling or,
like, fighting in our house
growing up.
But my mom had
a childhood where there was,
quite a bit
of argument and violence.
Today is December 26th.
We made it all the way
to New York.
There's grandma Rose.
Hello grandma Rose.
Hello there, Pat.
We would go to Elmira
for a week every summer.
And like,
Christmas and Thanksgiving.
And so I had a pretty
good understanding I think
that childhood
was really hard for her.
And definitely something that
was really ingrained in me
was the level of poverty
that she grew up in.
When Dad wasn't
working,
the money wasn't coming in.
We were on welfare.
And so when I was seven,
Margy would have been six,
we moved into
government subsidized housing.
My mother hated it,
and I do remember her telling
me he has to go to rehab.
But it never worked.
They got separated and my mom
went back to work at one
of the prisons here.
My mom was a great role model.
She was independent
and she was decisive, at least
up until she got sick.
She was so tired of living
in the government housing
that she moved us to this
house that was so old and so
decrepit,
but at the time,
in a better part of town.
It was my last
day of high school.
Hurricane Agnes
had struck south of us.
And the flood came
on Saturday morning.
The water was
pouring over the dam.
My mom deteriorated
after that.
The stress in her life was
building, building, building.
The stress of my dad's
drinking. The stress of her
teenage kids.
And then there was going
to be a trigger that was going
to snap.
I was home alone with her
and she said,
"I want to k*ll myself".
"I want to die."
I didn't know what to do.
I said, "Mom, it's okay.
Everything's okay.
Don't worry about it.
I'm here."
She took
a whole bottle of pills,
and then she went back
to her bedroom and I called
the police.
An ambulance showed up.
And here's the other thing,
I was 17
and I had just got my driver's
license the day before.
And I got in the car,
the first time I've ever
driven alone,
and I followed
the ambulance to the hospital.
And she was sent
to the psychiatric hospital.
I called my dad.
I don't know if he was
drinking that weekend,
I don't remember.
But I just kind
of became my mother.
But I liked it.
I liked driving to the grocery
store. I knew how to do that
- because my mom taught me.
- Yeah you took charge.
We should have known then
that's what set you apart,
you know, "Okay, I got this."
I think until we are
tested, we don't know what
we're capable of.
40 years ago,
Life magazine introduced
America's first astronauts
to the world.
They were all military pilots.
They were all in their 30s.
They all had crew cuts.
They were all men.
And they really were
all true American heroes.
But heroes come in every
size and shape and gender.
Today, we celebrate
the falling away of another
barrier
in America's quest to conquer
the frontiers of space,
and also to advance
the cause of equality.
I'm proud to be here
to congratulate
Colonel Eileen Collins
on becoming the first woman
to command a space shuttle
mission.
There's only a few
moments in my life that I
actually panicked.
And then I remember going,
there's the shuttle
commander over there.
There's Eileen over there.
You're not Eileen anymore.
Just go in there
and be the shuttle commander.
And then I was fine.
Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton
and administrator Goldin,
I just can't tell you how
much of an honor it is for me
to be here today.
Since I was a child,
I've dreamed about space.
I've admired pilots,
astronauts, and I've admired
explorers of all kinds.
And it was
only a dream of mine
that I would
someday be one of them.
Thank you.
Eileen Collins
will now join the likes
of John Glenn
and Neil Armstrong in the
annals of American history.
If people don't know her
name today, they soon will.
Four years ago,
she was the first woman
to pilot a shuttle.
But now, she stands alone. The
first woman to be in charge.
I'd like to welcome everyone
to the STS-93 crew press
conference.
To my right, Cady Coleman, our
mission specialist number 1.
I was
a scientist astronaut,
and I'm the person that's
going to be in charge
of deploying
a telescope off into space.
In my incoming class,
we were 24, three women.
So that's not so many.
So I was so excited
to be on a flight with Eileen
at all, let alone
having her be the commander.
You're flying
with a commander who has been
the focus of a great
deal of public interest
as the first woman ever
to command a space shuttle
mission.
How has Eileen Collins been
dealing with all of that
attention,
while trying
to keep you and the rest
of your crewmates on
course to fly the mission?
Well, she doesn't seem to have
any trouble keeping the rest
of us in line.
Eileen came to me at one
point and she said,
I need to talk to you.
I'm hearing from people you're
not doing your job very well.
And I'm saying,
but I am doing my job.
And she said, "I'm not telling
you that that's what I see.
I'm telling you that
that's not the perception.
I'm recommending that you
change, not how hard you're
working, but
the way you're expressing
to people that you know what
you're doing."
Eileen showed me that in
a very male-dominated culture
in the astronaut office,
my manner of being
in charge of the telescope
was not in charge enough.
We've heard a
lot today about Eileen Collins
the shuttle pilot
and shuttle mission commander.
But I'm a little curious about
Eileen Collins,
the wife and mother.
And I'm wondering how you
managed to juggle your
obviously busy
training schedule with home
life and daycare and whatnot,
especially considering
that you have a husband
who's a commercial
airline pilot.
- Well...
Let me, let me just tell you,
she's the only shuttle
commander with baby bottles on
her office desk
between
the stacks of checklists.
I walked in the house this
morning,
and my husband said to me,
"What's for dinner tonight?"
So I told him I
wasn't going to cook tonight
because I was in the simulator
from 6pm to 10pm, so...
But honestly,
my husband is very supportive
and he's getting very excited
about the upcoming mission.
Just a couple of weeks ago,
I told my three-year-old
daughter
that I was going to be flying
on the space shuttle in
a couple of weeks.
This is only her second
time ever on roller skates.
Even the ducks
are coming to watch.
With my mom, I wouldn't
see her prior to flight.
They would quarantine
her for a week before launch.
Alright, here we are
at the beach house,
Kennedy Space Center.
There's the first woman
commander,
and I'll show you the beach.
But there's a bright
old sun out there, so...
And then every launch
day and every landing day,
we'd all go out
to Cape Canaveral.
We're at the family
reception.
Mom launches tonight.
There's Miss Bridget.
Hi, Bridget!
- Hi.
- And she's holding up
the patch.
Can you show the patch?
You are able to
perceive the level of tension
leading up to launch.
Bridget,
what are you drawing now?
- The Earth.
- Oh, that's the Earth?
Hey, you're doing a good job!
After the Challenger
accident, they came up with
a family support plan,
because at the time,
the families were intermixed
with the other viewers.
And when it happened,
you know, obviously traumatic.
Cameras in people's faces.
- Hi, Pat!
- And so they came up
with this plan
where they'd keep the spouses
and children together.
PAT [Archive]:
So we're at the beach house.
There's Marg. Hi, Marg.
There's Mom. Hi, Mom.
- That's a cigarette
- Okay.
And they would fly
you out and put you up.
But it wasn't really
because they loved you,
but just in case
something happened,
you were all together,
and they could take care
of you that way.
PAT [Archive]:
There's the ocean.
Waiting for the crew.
Right there in the background,
you can see
Space Shuttle Columbia.
A little over 24
hours it'll be launching.
Every evening we
would pack up all of our stuff
so that we were
ready to go the next morning.
So if anything wrong
would happen with the launch,
we could immediately be on
a plane to...
I was never told where.
We were packing up in case,
in case there was a disaster
on launch
or disaster on landing.
- Did you know
that as a child?
- Yes. Yes.
And my dad, it's
funny, when he gets tense,
he just, he becomes very quiet
and just
everything slows down.
So he becomes incredibly calm.
Just about ready to go.
The families, we're
at the launch control center,
and then as it gets close,
you climb up to the roof.
I think it's maybe three miles
or something
from the actual launch.
Leading the crew
of Columbia is 42-year-old
Eileen Collins,
making her third trip
to space, on this, her first
space shuttle command.
I felt so proud.
So many decades
into the space program
and here, finally,
a woman was in charge
of the whole spaceship.
I mean, this was just huge.
Launch Director,
you have the MMT concurrence
to proceed with the launch.
Shuttle commander
Eileen Collins getting into
her seat there.
Eileen, the
weather is cooperating tonight
and the launch
team is ready to go.
EILEEN [Archive]: Great news,
crew's ready to go.
STS-93 launch turned
out to be the scariest launch
that we'd had since
we lost the Challenger.
I was down on the mid
deck for the launch itself.
Time seems to stop.
Every second seems
so amazing and wonderful.
And then
Eileen's voice cuts in.
We see a fuel cell PH one.
That means that we have
had some kind of electrical
incident.
I was
actually on the headset
and the launch happened
and you could hear all
the radio chatter
and obviously being a pilot,
there were some anomalies.
It turns out that
at the moment of launch,
when the engines lit,
a pin in one of the injector
plates popped out
- and we
started leaking hydrogen.
I had no control over that.
I could not stop that leak.
Just a few seconds
later, the circuit breaker
popped.
That cost two of the computers
- that were
running main engines.
You know, one more problem and
we'd have an engine shutdown.
So we're all very nervous.
You know,
in every simulation, you know,
this really might happen.
But when it's really
happening,
I'm not thinking about family
or I mean just thinking,
we just want to get to the
safest place we can get to,
and that safest
place is getting to orbit.
She was
responding to the calls.
You know, her voice is shaking
because of the vibration.
And I was just praying
my God let's, you know,
please keep the first
woman commander safe.
EILEEN
You know, I hear
Eileen's voice on the radio
and I didn't
think about it till later.
Like, wow, Eileen didn't
sound, you know, nervous.
She didn't sound upset.
EILEEN
Hearing "press to MECO"
means that we get to orbit.
A safe orbit.
And I mean, it's,
it's everything at that point.
- We're going to be okay.
Because of the hydrogen leak,
we actually ran out
of gas on the way to orbit.
And they only just made it.
Yeah, it was...
It was kind of dicey.
Fortunately,
we made it to orbit safely.
We got the telescope out,
and the rest of the mission
was fine.
Commander Collins,
we have your husband,
Pat Youngs, standing by.
Everything okay at home? Any
messages you need to pass up,
Pat Youngs?
Just that,
our daughter Bridget
is looking forward to spending
a little time with mom.
She's had
enough time with dad.
Anything you guys want
to exchange,
say anything to one another?
Well, I agree with that.
And I'm looking forward
to coming home and living a...
maybe a little bit more
less hectic life for a while.
CHARLES [Laughing]:
Pat, anything you want to say
to Eileen?
Just, it's been fun watching.
And I know the crew's
done a great job, but,
we're all ready for,
for you guys to get back,
and be with us too.
Less than
a thousand miles to touchdown
at the Kennedy Space Center in
Florida, now, as it continues
across Eastern Texas.
I remember asking
her once if there's ever
a part of her
who just yearns for the house
with the white picket fence.
And just like your
basic regular family life.
And she said,
one day, one day, but not yet.
When you heard
there were some problems,
in the back of your mind do
you go, "Oh, great,
they're going to think
because the women are flying."
Did you ever have that?
Did you feel you're carrying
the weight of all the women
with you
on these kind of things?
Well, you know, actually,
yes, in a way, you know,
being the first woman
doing anything, there's,
you know, the other
women are watching you.
They want you to do well,
you're setting a precedent.
And, you know, there is a
little bit of pressure there,
but I think the pressure is
good. I like to work under
pressure.
She also saw this as
something that had great
purpose,
moving the dial forward
into the exploration of space.
And when you believe that
you're part of something
bigger than yourself,
I think you're able
to acknowledge that you're not
going to be at home
as much as you might like with
your children and your husband
and that, yes, it's risky, but
it's worth, worth the risk.
The space shuttle
was an experimental
vehicle, really.
And I think
every flight we flew,
there was something that
reminded us how dangerous
it was.
There was a thought
that we're in Mission Control
and we can solve anything.
And of course,
that's not true.
There's some problems we
couldn't solve.
And we found that out.
It was December of 2002.
I had had my son Luke,
and I was assigned to STS-114,
my next mission.
EILEEN [Archive]: Okay,
everybody look over here.
Since my launch was coming up
and she was seven years old,
I thought I should talk
to Bridget about Challenger.
I was afraid that some kid in
school was going to come up
to her and say,
oh, the Challenger blew up and
your mom is going to blow up.
So I went and got a book,
sat her down on the couch
and I showed her
a picture of the expl*si*n.
I told her it was a bad
accident.
Nobody wanted it to happen.
But the problem
has been fixed.
Your mom is going to be
completely safe.
And she said "Okay."
Just less than two months
later, we lost Columbia.
I saw the burning
debris across the sky
and my heart
was beating so hard
I thought it was going to,
like, jump out of my chest.
I was camping with my dad
and we were
woken up in the morning
and there was
a radio on a picnic table.
And my dad pulled me aside
and he said, "Bridget,
there's been an accident."
And that like,
seven astronauts are dead.
It's a small community.
You know each other.
My wife walked in
and she looked like she'd seen
a ghost.
She handed me my pager
and said, "I think you'd
better go to work.
The space
shuttle just blew up".
See it gives me
chills just thinking about it.
Columbia was caused
by a loss of insulating foam
striking the heat shield
of the shuttle on launch
and during the re-entry phase
where this tremendous heat is
generated,
it literally melted the wing
off the side of the vehicle.
And it came apart.
Those were moms
and dads and they all died.
Now I had to face my daughter,
who was only seven.
I tried
to start talking to her,
"Hun, we need
to talk about what happened"
and she didn't
want to talk about it.
"No, Mom. No."
Maybe I lost a piece
of my integrity with
my seven-year-old daughter.
Eileen and her crew on
the day of the Columbia
accident,
I think were largely finished
with their training
for STS-114.
It was ready to go.
I was the lead
flight director,
and what went from a flight
that wasn't getting a whole
lot of fanfare
and a lot of attention,
at least outside of our
community,
went from that
to all eyes on us every day.
If all goes as planned,
Space Shuttle Discovery
will liftoff in mid-May.
It will be NASA's
first shuttle mission since
seven astronauts died aboard
Columbia more than two
years ago.
We had an accident. We had,
frankly,
we've had two accidents.
But people, we are people
that believe in this mission
and we're
going to continue it.
There was no way I was
going to quit that mission.
People would lose
faith in the whole program.
I mean, the commander
doesn't want to go?
Because there were people that
wanted to shut down
the shuttle program.
"You k*lled two crews.
Why keep this
hazardous spacecraft flying?"
These seven crew
members lost their lives.
And now if we shut
down the shuttle program,
that's like saying what
they died for wasn't worth it.
I was at my desk
and the head of the astronaut
office called me up
and told me I was on the next
crew right after the Columbia
accident.
I was totally shocked.
I was born in Queens, New
York. Typical Italian family.
In a lot of ways,
I was an unlikely astronaut.
I was claustrophobic, afraid
of heights, and couldn't swim.
I'd never
flown in space before.
I called my family,
told them we were going to be
on the next flight.
And it was
a very important mission.
How will you explain
what you're going to do
when you do the next mission
to your daughter,
who is seven, isn't she?
How will you explain it
to her that it will be safe?
I told her
we're not going to fly
until she's in second grade,
which will be at least
next fall.
And just
to not worry about it.
And I think she's going to be
just fine through this
whole thing.
EILEEN [Archive]:
Okay.
Today is May,
what day is today, Bridget?
- May 12th.
- May 12th, 2005.
My American Girl came here
at 6:25 and it's Thursday.
This is the Friends Forever
book we can fill out together.
Yeah, I think I, I
definitely withdrew from her.
I felt a bit of betrayal.
I was like, why are you...
You know that we love you.
You know, we want
you to be here. We need you.
And we know they need you,
too. But...
Like, why...
you're leaving us.
And you seem
to think that's okay.
Our goal here is to make sure
all these panels are good.
But even more than that,
to make sure that nothing
comes off
and hits these panels with
enough force to break them.
We had to figure out
how to keep the foam
from coming off
and causing
damage to the shuttle's tiles.
And that turned out to be
a really difficult problem.
Astronaut Charlie Camarda.
- To me, I'm not happy
with the progress it's made.
I think it still
has a long way to go.
This is a space shuttle tile.
Right.
30,000 of these on
the belly of the vehicle.
And look.
Look how fragile it is.
And look what happens when you
do that. That's all it takes.
There was a lot of ill
feelings between astronauts,
flight directors and program
managers at Johnson Space
Flight Center.
It was chaos.
And Eileen takes the crew
to all the different places
that manufacture pieces
of the space vehicle.
We watch how
they put the foam on
and they said there's only
going to be a one in
10,000 chance
that that'll ever come off.
It's okay.
So that was as safe
as it was going to be.
But that was what we
signed up to do as astronauts.
You know,
we knew that it was risky.
We... We took
that upon ourselves.
I felt
strongly that we were ready.
I also had no illusions about
"And now, shuttle's safe".
It's like riding a ride
at Disney World. I didn't have
that illusion at all.
I also knew that it
wasn't going to fall on me.
It was going to fall
on Eileen and her crew,
which was the very
thought that kept me awake
for the previous two
and a half years, where almost
every day of my life
was committed to nothing
but solving those problems,
preparing the team
and being ready to fly and not
fail them.
Hang on.
- Okay. Say goodbye.
- Bye.
- Bye.
- Bye.
They took me
to quarantine seven days
before launch.
It was around
7pm in the evening.
It was still light out.
It was summer. It was July.
Bridget started crying
when I was getting
out of the car.
I remember not
wanting to have her see me cry
because
she needs to go focus on
doing space and not be
worried about her kids being
emotional.
But the way that
I saw this as a child,
just like I just did not trust
that the engineers were
going to sufficiently fix
the problem.
It was very hard on
me when I got out of the car
and went into crew quarters,
but when I walked through
the door
and I saw the conference room
and I saw that some
of my crew was already there,
and I saw the checklists,
I saw the computers,
I went straight
into the mission mode.
And I was fine. I'm
going to be back for my kids.
The first time we went out
there to launch
and strapped in,
we had a problem
with our low-level sensors
and we scrubbed.
And we went
back into quarantine.
And it was taking days
and days and days to figure
out what this problem is.
We did not know when
our next launch date was.
Turned out we were
in quarantine for 5 weeks.
So I asked my boss,
can we please get a night off
and go stay with our families.
They were staying
at a hotel on the beach.
That was
like a day from a movie.
Mom came,
we went to the Pancake House,
then we went to the beach
and the weather was perfect.
That was such an uneventful
but like picturesque day.
Was that
the last time you saw her?
And that was
the last time I saw her.
The day we actually launched,
I was totally calm.
This is mission
specialist Charlie Camarda.
You're laying
on your back and you just wait
- as they go through
all the checks.
CHARLIE [Laughing]: But if
you see vultures circling on
top of your vehicle,
I guess it's a bad omen,
you know?
That might be a day you might
want to,
you might want to scrub.
EILEEN [Archive]:
Our thanks to you,
to the launch team
and everybody in the shuttle
program.
The crew is go for launch.
If you watch video
of me in the back
of the control room
on the day of launch,
you'll see somebody that looks
like they're about
to throw himself
off of the top
of a skyscraper.
Somebody who is about to face
something like the ultimate
test of his life.
As I'm waiting to watch
the launch,
thinking it has to work.
And knowing that the cost
of it not working is those
seven people.
By the time we got
up to watch the actual launch,
everyone was crying.
T minus 10 seconds,
go for main engine start.
Seven, six, five.
Three engines up and burning.
Three, two, one, and liftoff
of Space Shuttle Discovery.
Beginning America's new
journey to the moon,
Mars and beyond.
We watched
the boosters light.
You watch the shuttle go up.
There's no,
there's no turning back.
They're gone.
This was a huge deal
for Eileen. Everything she had
done in her career.
That all brought her
to this point in time, right,
when she was leading
the charge back into space.
The whole American space
program at that point was
revolved
around this return to flight.
And so it had to go well.
It was
a very smooth launch.
And then we went
to a press conference
and we told the press
that all looked good.
I don't know how to begin.
This is, my heart's
been in my throat all morning.
It's been a great day.
And to think that here we are
today with Americans back
in flight.
I couldn't be more proud
of them. It's a great day.
Then we all got on our
airplanes to fly back to our
home center.
And driving to my house,
I got a call on my phone
saying we had a major
debris release during ascent.
You need
to come back immediately.
So I made a completely ill*gal
U-turn in the middle
of the highway.
And drove as fast as I
could back to the Space Center
to the video review area.
To NASA's horror,
foam came off that tank again.
Just in the last few minutes,
we've heard that NASA has
told us,
and indeed the crew,
about a possible debris event.
They're referring to that
little piece that you saw
flying off the fuel pod there.
But they're not telling us
at this stage how serious or
unserious it might be.
The point, I guess,
is that space travel is a very
risky business.
Of all the bad days in
my life, that has to be
probably the worst.
You know, having foam
having come off the tank,
that is what k*lled
the Columbia crew.
After two and a half
years of working to solve this
problem,
we had failed,
and in the worst case, we'd
k*lled Eileen and her crew.
We told them as
quickly as we could.
I found out about
it after we reached orbit,
but before we
went to bed that night,
there was a message
from my flight director.
EILEEN [Archive]:
We were very surprised to hear
that a large piece
of foam had fallen off
and frankly, we were
disappointed to hear that had
happened.
One in 10,000 chance.
These people predicted what
that probability was
going to be.
It was nonsense.
It was a stampede at
Houston with all the reporters
and news conferences.
Like how could
this happen again?
And how badly might the
shuttle have been impacted?
MARCIA [Archive]:
Marcia Dunn, Associated Press.
I just want to clarify,
what is the best estimate
of the size
of foam that came off?
Was that bigger than
the foam that hit Columbia?
Of course, the press
wants to know how bad is it?
What we are prepared to say
is we've seen some things
that causes some
concern amongst the experts.
The imagery folks saw things
that they thought were
indications
of debris in a couple
of cases, indications
of damage on the vehicle.
And I would suggest
that nobody latch on to
that this implies that NASA is
trying to play this down or
anything.
And what I could tell
them was we have pictures,
but we don't yet
know how bad it is.
Gee, let me tap dance away
from this one a little bit.
What I, what I tried to tell
you is, and again,
I'm not trying to be evasive.
I just don't want to try
telling you guys that I know
something more
than I really know.
I was in my office
watching his press conference,
and I saw him
getting very frustrated.
And so I put on my coat and
went over to the press center.
And we're joined by deputy
shuttle program manager,
Wayne Hale.
- Wayne.
- Thank you, Rob.
I wanted
to come over and, and,
and, provide a little
bit more light for folks.
Wayne Hale came
over and rescued me. Sort of.
Paul, as you know,
is the lead flight director,
but we have a team that
probably approaches 200 folks
pouring over this data.
We are paying very
serious attention to this,
and we are committed to making
sure that we come back safely.
The video that was overhead
looking down
at the shuttle wing
showed that piece of foam
go right underneath the wing.
With a hole in the wing
or with any kind of damage,
we would not have
been able to come home.
In a worst case,
you know, if you presume that
we had damaged that orbiter
in a way that we
did not have confidence
it could deorbit safely
with the crew on board.
Then we had contingency
procedures in place
where we would have kept
them on board space station.
There was a lot of risk
because that's more people
than station
was provisioned to keep alive.
We had some repair
techniques that were not
well proven.
What we didn't know was
whether the shuttle was
capable of safe re-entry,
whether we could bring the
crew back on Discovery or not.
They were stuck in
space until we could prove
the heat shield
was not damaged.
BRIDGET [Archive]:
Mommy, is it cold up there?
EILEEN [Archive]:
It's a little bit cold.
I'm wearing a sweater.
- You wanna see me do a flip?
- Yeah!
- Mommy!
- Look at that,
there she goes!
In my life,
I learned that if you're
thrown a curveball,
something's different,
don't panic, don't overreact.
Don't show that
you're afraid of something.
Even if you might be.
That way, you control any
element of fear that might
affect you.
Momma,
do you wanna come back home or
do you want to stay in space?
I want to come home.
Did you know you
were definitely going to see
her again?
Oh, absolutely not.
Yeah, I think
there's just a low level.
A low level of constant fear
that she's not going
to come down.
- Have you been
a good girl, Bridget?
- Sort of.
Have you been
a good boy, Luke?
Yes, Momma.
I don't think I'm
outwardly emotional.
I really don't.
Now I used to be when
I was a kid. I know I was.
But as we mature in life,
we learn how to handle those
emotions.
I think as a leader,
showing strong emotions is
a bad thing to do.
Okay, signing out from
the conference, and we'll talk
to you in a couple of days.
- Bye-bye.
- Love you, Mom.
Alright, good,
she blew us a kiss. 1-2-3,
all together.
- 1-2-3.
- Love you,
Mom, love you.
I was hospitalized
for anorexia when I was 15.
And a large, I think a large
portion of that was like,
was perfectionism and control
and excellence and high
standards,
and repressing emotion.
I understand we're going
to end it.
Tell my family I love them.
I didn't say that because I
thought we were going out
over the--
I thought
the world was listening to us.
So tell them I said I
love them. Thank you.
Yeah we heard you. We
heard you, we love you, too.
Love you, Mommy. Bye.
But in all the time she was
gone and all the decisions
that she made,
I think there was never any
question that she loved us.
So I'm back in my office in
Cape Canaveral and just
anxious, right?
Everyone's worried
watching it all unfold.
A couple of my smart
folks had come up with
an idea that,
well, why don't we just
turn this shuttle upside down
as we're
approaching the space station?
We'll have the space station
crew take pictures of them out
the window.
We'll have them take pictures
of the bottom of the shuttle
to check for damage.
It's what we called
the "rendezvous pitch-around
maneuver".
And I loved it. I go,
this is going to work.
It's going to be great.
But there were some
naysayers in the room.
Oh, you can't do that.
You can't do that.
One of the first comments we
got back from a very
experienced shuttle commander
was, "Are you insane?"
That would be the stupidest
thing you could ever do.
Turn the shuttle upside down,
where now, the commander can't
look out the window and see
the target spacecraft out
the window.
When we were only 600ft away.
Why would you possibly
do that?
From the aft flight
deck
by Commander Eileen Collins,
range is 950ft, closing
at a rate of 1.5ft per second.
And Sergei, they are
650ft now and closing.
So if you can
imagine the station's up here,
we come from behind and below,
and we stop at 600ft.
And then we
initiate the pitch maneuver.
Go for the RPM and go
to proceed within 400 now.
The orbiter's
through about 4,
5 degrees of pitch now.
Eileen flew that
rendezvous pitch maneuver
by hand.
Anything can happen.
Everything is risky.
I would say if I had any
concern at all in my exchanges
with Eileen,
it was, wow, I hope
if she's not happy about
some of this,
or worried about some of this,
she would tell me, because
she sure seems unfazed by this
while the whole rest of
the community is going crazy.
All the families,
we all watched this together.
I don't think as a kid I
realized that my mom was
actually a good pilot.
But I was like, I'm pretty
proud of her for that one.
Nice job, rendezvous.
Thanks, flight.
About ten more seconds,
we'll have you
start clicking your photos.
It turned out
we did have some damage.
In between each of these tiles
under the shuttle are these,
they're like pieces
of cardboard, but they're
called gap fillers.
Two of them had popped out.
If we would fly back
from space with those gap
fillers sticking out,
only protruding about
a half an inch to an inch,
the heating would be so high
we could burn up on re-entry.
Marcia Dunn,
Associated Press, for Wayne,
realizing that the gap filler
studies are still incomplete.
Is there still any thought,
even mention about sending
one of the spacewalkers down
there to snip them,
do a little cutting?
Well, that's not,
that's not off the table yet.
Never been done before.
I hate doing things that have
never been done before
in space.
You don't know
how they're going to go.
You don't know if you've
thought through all
the problems.
But Eileen's the commander.
She had to come up with
a judgment.
Is this safe enough to do?
And she decided yes.
But they were very nervous.
My two crew members,
Steve Robinson
and Soichi Noguchi,
did a spacewalk to try
to get the gap fillers out.
And I remember telling
Steve before he went out,
do not pull the tile out.
Do not. And he said,
"Don't worry, Eileen, I'm not
going to pull a tile out."
Steve got on
the end of the robot arm.
And he removed with his right
hand, he pulled that gap
filler out.
Problem resolved.
Got the crew back inside.
Phew.
So far, so good. But,
you know, flying in space,
I don't know that I ever
got past "So far, so good.
Tomorrow's another day."
I know that all of us will be
holding our collective breaths
as she brings
that ship back down.
How about you? Are you calmer
than the average viewer?
More nervous?
As a pilot myself, you know,
I think I'm pretty calm.
You know, obviously there's,
there'll be some apprehension.
Discovery,
Houston, take air data.
About one hour
before landing,
we do the deorbit burn.
And I'm watching altitude,
air speed guidance.
Are we where we're supposed to
be? Is the energy level right?
Are all the systems working?
During that
first part of the deorbit,
you've burned the big engines
and you're coming down,
but you're still in space.
You start getting
into the atmosphere
and then you start seeing
orange light out the windows.
That orange light is
from the big ol' fireball
that's now starting to form
along the outside
of the spacecraft.
It's getting through that
fireball that is the hard part
that you need
to finish getting through
to still be alive
at the other end.
In the c*ck, we
are looking at this display.
Counting down the minutes.
It was a little tense.
But for our
families on the ground...
being right after Columbia,
it's tough for them.
It's tough for anyone,
you know,
because that 15 minutes,
they don't know.
So for 15 minutes, that's when
people on the ground are
holding their breath.
We were at the Cape
and went to a conference room,
and when they re-entered,
Bridget was very
aware of what time that was
as far as what phase of flight
when Columbia had their
misfortune.
You're waiting,
you're waiting,
you're waiting.
It's a scary
couple of minutes.
EILEEN [Archive]:
Houston, Discovery has
the runway in sight.
Copy runway.
But we made
it through that re-entry.
We passed the point
where Columbia broke up.
Discovery's descent
to the runway 20 times steeper
than that of a standard
commercial airliner's descent.
It was important for me
to make a really nice landing.
Because I felt that would
really put the icing on
the cake.
That the Return to Flight
mission was successful.
America's back in space.
The space shuttle is back up
there, and the mission's back.
When the wheels touched
the ground,
I breathed a sigh of relief.
I remember feeling like
physical weight coming off
my shoulders.
When we got to wheel
stop and the shuttle was down
and on the runway,
and I sat back and knew,
I can put this down.
At that point,
I was like, phew, I'm done.
And I started
thinking how heavy I was.
I felt terrible.
I had a hard time getting out
of the seat and a hard time
walking down stairs.
It took every bit of energy
that I could muster to do that
walk around.
But I did it, and it was
important for the commander
to be out there.
The kids were very happy
to see me when the flight
came back,
and I remember telling
Bridget, "Hun,
I'm not going to fly again."
The community made a big
deal about saying this first
woman to do this.
I sometimes feel like, man,
you take it away from her.
She managed a crew of strong
personalities on a mission
that had to be practically
perfect in its execution.
The hell with the first woman
part. She did a good job.
When there was
a large part of the community
that didn't just
think she couldn't do it,
but were probably
actively rooting against her.
Well, screw all of them,
you know.
She did a great
job at what she did,
and that's a heck of a lot
more important in my mind.
My family is here,
and I thank my husband,
Pat and my two children
for their patience in the long
hours that I've worked.
To my children. I'm back now.
When Mom came back,
our relationship was
definitely strained.
Do you remember
when we Skyped with Mom?
Oh, yeah. Yeah,
in the little,
almost circular room in NASA?
I remember you
were incredibly emotional,
and I just had to do something
to change your emotional
state, was what I felt
at the time.
Were you really
never afraid when Mom left?
Not really. No.
In a way,
I think it was a blessing
that I was that young,
when she went on her mission.
Because I wasn't able
to form those cognitions
that would
have caused that fear.
I think you just were
unlucky enough to be older
where you were smart enough
to outthink what adults were
telling you.
It took years
to rebuild the trust,
Bridget's trust in me.
And thinking
about it in hindsight,
it was a very close
line between life and death,
taking the risks that we
did flying the space shuttle.
- Hi, hun!
- Moooom!
Right! It's
so good to see you.
Do you remember you told me,
"Bridget, you should hope
for the best but expect
the worst?"
Do you remember that?
That's a general
life philosophy
that I have.
And so, things
actually did go well.
- That was pretty shocking.
- But you know it's--
You know, I think back.
So you were nine years old
when I flew that last mission.
And I think back
to when I was nine years old
and my parents split up
and I was so, so scared
my mom was going to die
and who would take care of us?
I don't know where
we would have gone.
Probably foster care.
So I'm aware,
not exactly what
was going on in your head,
but something similar.
- Was it hard to say goodbye?
- It's always hard
to say goodbye.
I think through
my struggle and my coming
out of it,
it's like our relationship,
probably since I was like,
16 to now,
has been, has been wonderful.
I mean, I think her ability
to communicate about emotion
improved tremendously.
Now that Bridget's an adult,
I think
she understands what I did,
and I think she's in more
of a position now to be proud
of that fact.
What Mom did.
I don't think she'll
ever fully understand it,
because you have
to really live it to fully
understand it.
I did a hometown
visit after my last mission.
It was very cold.
There was a blizzard.
I was very stressed during
that visit because my mother
had just passed away.
And I did a lot
of signing pictures.
And I remember
my dad had a list of 30 names.
"Would you sign
pictures for these people?"
And I signed them all.
He got hit
by a car the next day
and he died.
And all those pictures were
sitting there.
They never got to his friends.
It was a very,
very difficult, sad time.
Our dad always told us,
"Say the Serenity Prayer."
It was the prayer that they
used in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And the best
thing about that prayer is
like, you don't have control
over everything in your life.
There are some things
you have no control over,
and I think you have to,
to be an astronaut,
you have to know that.
Because you will be
miserable if you try
to control everything.
Because you can't.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
I had actually
practiced for ten years
how to land a shuttle,
and I only did it twice.
And by the way, the shuttle
was actually hand flown
by the pilot and commander
as we approached the space
station.
When you think of all
that Eileen has achieved,
right, from where she grew up,
this little girl on the other
side of the tracks in Elmira,
New York,
and what she has accomplished.
What's great about
Eileen is she's so humble,
and that's
what's bad about it,
because she should be
getting so much more
so much more attention, but
that's what makes her great.
That's what makes Eileen,
Eileen.
Enjoy.
- Hi. How are you?
- Good, how are you?
Whoa. You're in the flight
suit. You're ready to go.
Do you want to be a pilot?
Like, back when I was your
age, there were very few
women pilots.
But now there's
a lot of women pilots, so.
And they're
doing really good, too.
Eileen paved the way for women.
It was a big hill she climbed,
and she did it with finesse
and grace and confidence.
How about
"reach for the stars"?
Don't give up,
okay. Keep trying.
Okay. Because you can do it.
And now, for the first time,
there is a woman assigned
to a crew to fly to the moon.
You want
to do a picture? Okay.
And of course,
everyone is looking forward
to the first flights
to Mars.
And it seems inconceivable
that women won't be part
of all this
in a very big way.
Eileen blazed the way for women,
and she was a cool leader
in time of great stress.
And accepted the risks that it
took to move humanity further
out into space.
To that end,
my hat is off to her.
You know,
we talk about risk and safety,
and I hear a lot of people
say, "Safety is number one."
"Safety is
the most important thing."
It's not entirely true.
Safety is really important.
And we need to always
keep safety in front of us.
But in the end,
what's number one is to go.
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Spacewoman (2024)
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