Spacewoman: The Eileen Collins Documentary

This documentary almost didn’t exist. Had Trump appointed retired astronaut NASA Administrator after she addressed the 2016 RNC Convention, as some speculated he might, there is no way this film would have been made. Nevertheless, she remains and will always be the first woman to both pilot and command Space Shuttle missions. Yet, former NASA flight director Paul Hill argues Collins’contributions to the American space program were far more important than her famous “firsts” in Hannah Berryman’s documentary, Spacewoman, which opens tomorrow in LA.

Nothing was ever handed to Eileen Collins. She grew up in a working-class Upstate New York household, constantly dealing with her family’s issues of addiction, mental health, and abuse. Yet, by working multiple jobs, she paid for her initial flying lessons. Graduating into the U.S. Air Force through the ROTC, she aspired to join the astronaut program. To gain the necessary flight expertise and hours, she became an Air Force test pilot. Along the way, she met and married her husband, Pat Youngs, who left the Air Force to become a commercial airline pilot. It allowed him to support her career, but still relate to some of her aeronautical challenges.

It was a lot harder for their daughter Bridgit Youngs, who was just old enough to understand the Challenger disaster. Indeed, the memory of the explosion was still fresh when Collins was selected for her first mission—her first “first,” piloting the Discovery and docking with the Russian Mir (way back in 1995, before Russia reverted to authoritarianism).

In 1999, she also became the first woman to command a Shuttle mission. Yet, as Hill compellingly argues, her most important command was not her first. It was STS-114, the so-called “Return to Space,” after the Columbia tragedy. Despite all the scrutiny, the mission developed potentially fatal complications, which Collins and her colleagues, primarily Hill and former Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, thoroughly explain in dramatic but lucid and easily understood terms.

Collins’ story is important for reasons far beyond her “firsts.” It is entirely possible her grace under pressure and skill as a pilot saved the American manned-space program. Indeed, Collins’ 2016 convention speech rightly criticized our inability to send crew into space—a dire situation that is finally getting rectified.

Still, the real surprise of Spacewoman is just how much Collins bravely reveals. She didn’t merely work a few after school jobs. Her success story combines Horatio Alger-esque bootstrap-pulling with a childhood survival story that would impress Oprah Winfrey (who indeed welcomed her as a guest). According to many people in public life today, Eileen Collins should not exist, but she does. Very highly recommended, Spacewoman screens tomorrow (5/28) at the Laemmle Noho and Friday (5/29) in Santa Barbara.