Apollo 11 astronauts biography of martin

Michael " Mike " Collins October 31, — April 28, was an American astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the Moon in while his crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin , made the first crewed landing on the surface. He was also a test pilot and major general in the U. Air Force Reserve.

Apollo 13

Born in Rome , Italy, where his father was serving as the U. He followed his father, brother, uncle, and cousin into the military. He was accepted into the U. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10 in , in which he and Command Pilot John Young performed orbital rendezvous with two spacecraft and undertook two extravehicular activities EVAs, also known as spacewalks.

On the Apollo 11 mission, he became one of 24 people to fly to the Moon , which he orbited thirty times. He was the fourth person and third American to perform a spacewalk , the first person to have performed more than one spacewalk, and, after Young, who flew the command module on Apollo 10 , the second person to orbit the Moon alone. A year later, he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum , and held this position until , when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

In , he took a job as vice president of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in to start his own consulting firm.