Michael Collins is a famous American astronaut, he became the twenty-seventh man in the world who went into space. On his account two exits beyond the orbit of the Earth, many times received US government awards.
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 Father Michael.
From the very 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 a military school in West Point. Michael was educated and in 1952 completely surrendered to the U.S. Air Force.
In a new place, he showed consistently good results, quickly received the rank of military pilot. Subsequently, he served more than once in many American military units. His preparation for the 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 space flight
A year after completing full training in flying, in 1962, Collins became one of the participants in a campaign aimed at sending highly qualified and trained pilots into space. In addition to an experienced soldier, more than thirty people took part. Then came a formal order that said Michael officially became a member of the NASA astronaut community.
First flight
In the summer of 1966, the first departure of the newly minted astronaut in zero gravity took place. This flight pursued mainly technical and scientific tasks. The main mission of the crew was to dock with a space satellite in order to improve the quality of unmanned equipment.
Over the entire duration of the flight, Collins was twice overboard, at first he completed several scientific tasks that were originally set for the crew, and then contributed to the docking of space objects.
Many of the 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 captain duties with the famous astronaut Neil Armstrong. This time, the main order for the crew was the docking of two spacecraft along the orbit of the Earth’s satellite - the Moon.
Men successfully coped with the task, it took them only 6 days to complete. Landing did not go according to plan, a rapidly diving space technology with a crew on board landed 24 km from the given coordinates. The situation was without problems, men were quickly discovered and evacuated from the Pacific Ocean.
