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Michael Collins (born October 31, 1930), Major General, USAF, Ret., 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 Collins undertook two EVAs. 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 make the first manned landing on its surface. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon. Collins was the fourth person, and third American, to perform an EVA; and is the first person to have performed more than one EVA. Prior to becoming an astronaut, he had attended the United States Military Academy, and from there he joined the United States Air Force and flew F-86s at Chambley-Bussieres Air Base, France. He was accepted to the U.S. Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960. He unsuccessfully applied for the second astronaut group, but was accepted for the third group. After retiring from NASA in 1970 he took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum. He held this position until 1978 when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980 he took the job as Vice President of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own business. He was married to Patricia Collins until her death in April 2014. They had three children: Kate (born May 6, 1959), Ann (born October 31, 1961), and Michael (born February 23, 1963). ==Childhood and education== Collins was born in Rome, Italy, on October 31, 1930, to U.S. Army Major General James Lawton Collins, who served in the army for 38 years. For the first 17 years of his life, Collins called Rome; Oklahoma; Governors Island, New York; Puerto Rico; San Antonio, Texas; and Alexandria, Virginia home. He took his first ride in a plane in Puerto Rico aboard a Grumman Widgeon. His father often told of how his own first plane ride had been in 1911 with Frank Lahm in the Philippines. He studied for two years in the Academia del Perpetuo Socorro in San Juan, Puerto Rico.〔''San Juan's Young King Who Climbed to the Moon''. 1969 ''Congressional Record, ''Vol. 115, Pages (H25639-H25640 ) (September 16, 1969). Accessed November 26, 2015.〕 After the United States entered World War II, the family moved to Washington, D.C. where Collins attended St. Albans School, from which he graduated in 1948. His mother wanted him to enter into the diplomatic service, but he decided to follow his father, two uncles, brother and cousin into the armed services, and received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, which also had the advantage of being free of tuition and other fees. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, finishing 185th out of 527 cadets in 1952, the same class as Ed White. His decision to join the United States Air Force for his active service was based on both the wonder of what the next 50 years might bring in aeronautics, and also to avoid accusations of nepotism had he joined the Army where, among other things, his uncle, General J. Lawton Collins, was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army.〔 The Air Force Academy was only in its initial construction phase, and would not graduate its first class for several years. In the interim, graduates of the Military Academy, Naval Academy (such as fellow astronaut Tom Stafford) and the Merchant Marine Academy were eligible for Air Force commissions. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Michael Collins (astronaut)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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