Michael Collins is an eminent American astronaut, he became the twenty-seventh person in the world to go into space. He has two exits from Earth's orbit, and has received US government awards many times.
Biography
The life of the famous astronaut began in 1930, in the capital of Italy. As a child, the boy had to go through many moves, his parents changed their place of residence because of the military position of Michael's father.
From adolescence, Collins was fond of military topics, independently studied aviation development directions. After graduating from high school in the US capital, the young man entered the military school in West Point. Michael was educated and in 1952 gave himself completely to the United States Air Force.
In the new place, he showed consistently good results, quickly received the rank of a military pilot. Subsequently, more than once served in many American military units. His preparation for official flight tests lasted about 9 years, during which time he became one of the best employees of the country's Air Force.
Preparing for a flight into space
A year after completing his full flight training, in 1962 Collins became one of the participants in a campaign to send highly qualified and trained pilots into space. In addition to an experienced soldier, more than thirty people took part. Next came the official order, which stated that Michael had officially become a member of the NASA astronaut community.
The first flight
In the summer of 1966, the first departure of the newly minted astronaut to zero gravity took place. This flight pursued mainly technical and scientific tasks. The main mission of the crew was to dock with the space satellite in order to improve the quality of the unmanned vehicles.
During the entire flight, Collins was twice overboard, first he completed several scientific tasks that were originally assigned to the crew, and then contributed to the docking of space objects.
Many tasks that were originally planned were not completed due to lack of fuel. After spending almost a month in orbit, the crew successfully landed at the planned location.
Second flight
The next flight from Earth's orbit took place in 1969, in the summer. Michael took the place of the pilot, he also shared the captain's duties with the famous astronaut Neil Armstrong. This time the main order of the crew was the docking of two spacecraft along the orbit of the Earth's satellite - the Moon.
The men successfully coped with the task, it took them only 6 days to complete. The landing did not go according to plan, a rapidly diving space vehicle with a crew on board landed 24 km from the given coordinates. The situation went without problems, the men were quickly discovered and evacuated from the Pacific Ocean.
Further activities
In 1970, Collins left Nasa in favor of a career at Edwards Air Force Base. Subsequently, he changed his place of work several times, but he always remained faithful to the aviation direction of activity, according to Michael himself, this is his favorite business of his life. At the moment he is 89 years old, unemployed, but at times is shown on documentary television programs.
