Michael Collins (astronaut) Michael Collins (astronaut) Michael Collins (born October 31, 1930) (Major General, USAF, Retired) is an American former astronaut and test pilot. Selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts in 1963, he flew into space twice. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10, in which he and Command Pilot John Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and undertook two extra-vehicular activities (EVAs, also known as spacewalks). His second spaceflight was as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11. While he stayed in orbit around the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left in the Lunar Module to
Buzz Aldrin that was a dead end, as it would be Gemini 13 which did not exist; the last scheduled mission in the program was Gemini 12. But the February 28, 1966, deaths of the Gemini 9 prime crew, Elliot See and Charles Bassett, in an air crash, led to Lovell and Aldrin being moved up one mission on March 21 to backup for Gemini 9, which put them in position as prime crew for Gemini 12. They were officially designated its prime crew on June 17, 1966, with Gordon Cooper and Gene Cernan as their backups. Initially, Gemini 12's mission objectives