Michael Collins

Michael Collins was born in Rome, Italy, to a United States Army officer and graduated from West Point in 1952. Joining the United States Air Force, he became an accomplished fighter pilot and experimental flight test officer at Edwards Air Force Base before being selected by NASA in its third astronaut class in 1963. He first flew in space on Gemini 10 in 1966, performing two spacewalks.

During Apollo 11 in July 1969, Collins piloted the command module Columbia alone in lunar orbit for over twenty-one hours while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the lunar surface. Cut off from all radio contact during each orbit behind the Moon, he was called "the loneliest man in history," though he later expressed deep serenity and profound wonder looking back at Earth. After leaving NASA, he served as the founding director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.