Elmira's Eileen Collins Named To Astronaut HOF

An Elmira native has earned herself a spot in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. 56-year-old Eileen Collins, who began work with NASA in 1990, was inducted during a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center this weekend, in front of a crowd of hundreds. More than a dozen Hall of Fame members were in attendance for the event, including moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. Collins, a retired Air Force colonel, was the first woman to pilot and the first to command a space shuttle, when she piloted the Discovery on a 1995 mission to the Mir Space Station. During her induction speech, Collins urged young people to consider college educations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.