Michael Collins was an American astronaut and test pilot. He was born on October 31, 1930, in Rome, Italy. His parents were army officers, and he spent much of his childhood moving around the world with them.
Collins attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and graduated in 1952 with a degree in military science. He then joined the Air Force, where he became a test pilot. In 1963, he was selected to be an astronaut for NASA’s Gemini program.
In 1966, Collins flew on the Gemini 10 mission, where he performed two spacewalks and rendezvoused with another spacecraft. In 1969, he was chosen to be the command module pilot on the historic Apollo 11 mission, which landed the first humans on the moon. While his fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon’s surface, Collins remained in orbit around the moon, piloting the command module.
After his time with NASA, Collins served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and later as the Director of the National Air and Space Museum. He retired from public service in 1978 and wrote several books about his experiences as an astronaut. Collins died on April 28, 2021, at the age of 90.