Col. Eileen Collins ’78 B.A. (Econ)/Hon. ’01 returned to Syracuse University in September for a screening of the 2024 documentary “Spacewoman” that tells the story of her experience as the first woman to pilot and command a spacecraft.

Following the screening, Collins was joined at the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) by former NASA administrator, fellow alumnus and recently retired Maxwell professor Sean O’Keefe ’78 M.P.A.

Collins—who majored in economics at the Maxwell School and in math at the College of Arts and Sciences—retired as a colonel from the Air Force in 2005 and from NASA in 2006. All told, she clocked more than 6,751 hours in 30 different kinds of aircraft and over 872 hours in space.

Her honors include U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, National Women’s Hall of Fame, Defense Superior Service Medal and Distinguished Flying Cross, among others.

Collins chronicled her story in a memoir, Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission (Arcade), co-authored with veteran space journalist Jonathan H. Ward.

After earning an associate degree, Collins accepted an Air Force ROTC scholarship to Syracuse University. She officially joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in July 1991.

On Feb. 3, 1995, Collins embarked on mission STS-63, piloting Discovery to a rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir, the first joint space venture between the two countries. Two years later, she guided Atlantis on STS-84 to a docking with Mir. On her third mission, STS-93, Collins stepped into her role as the shuttle’s first woman commander and led her Columbia crew through the launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory on July 23, 1999.

On July 26, 2005, NASA launched Discovery into orbit. It was the “Return to Flight Mission,” STS-114, and Collins safely guided the space shuttle and its crew to the International Space Station and back. It was her fourth and final space shuttle mission.

O’Keefe, recently named a University Professor Emeritus, led NASA from 2001–05, a period that included the Columbia shuttle disaster that claimed seven astronauts—a tragedy he often talked about with students at Syracuse University. The NASA role was one of four presidential appointments for O’Keefe.

—By Jessica Youngman with reporting by Jay Cox