Michael Collins

Born in Rome in 1930 to a military family, Collins followed father, brother, uncle, and cousin into service, graduating West Point in 1952 and flying F-86 Sabres in France. Accepted into test pilot school at Edwards in 1960, he joined NASA's third astronaut class in 1963. His first spaceflight came on Gemini 10 in 1966 with John Young - two rendezvous, two spacewalks, the first person to EVA more than once. Three years later he flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia, becoming one of twenty-four to reach the Moon but never touching it. He left NASA in 1970 for the State Department, then directed the National Air and Space Museum until 1978, later starting his own aerospace consulting firm. He died in April 2021, nearly fifty-two years after the flight that left him circling above.