Air force pilot
change
Collins joined the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963. He had 2 space flights. His first
spaceflight
was in Gemini 10. With John Young they joined up in space with two different
spacecraft
. Collins also did two space walks.
His second space flight was in
Apollo 11
where he was the command module pilot. While he kept going around the Moon,
Neil Armstrong
and
Buzz Aldrin
landed on the lunar surface. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.
Later life and death
change
Collins left
NASA
in 1970. He took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs during the
Richard Nixon
presidency. A year later he became the director of the
National Air and Space Museum
. He did this job until 1978. He then became the undersecretary of the
Smithsonian Institution
. In 1980 he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace. He left in 1985 to start his own business.
He was married to Patricia. They have three children: Kate, Ann and Michael, Jr. Kate is an actress, best known for her role as Natalie Marlowe Dillon in the daytime television drama
All My Children.
Collins died of
cancer
in
Naples, Florida
on April 28, 2021 at the age of 90.
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