Michael Collins (astronaut) - Space Program

Space Program

For the third group of astronauts, training began with a 240-hour course of the basics of spaceflight. Fifty-eight hours of this was devoted to geology, something that Collins did not readily understand and in which he never became very interested. At the end, Alan Shepard, who was head of the astronaut office, asked the fourteen to rank their fellow astronauts in the order they would want to fly with them in space. Collins picked David Scott in the number one position.

After this basic training, the third group were assigned specializations, with Collins receiving his first choice of pressure suits and EVA. His job was to monitor the development and act as something of a go-between for the astronaut office and the contractors. As such he was annoyed when during the secretive planning of Ed White's EVA on Gemini 4, he was not involved.

In late June 1965, Collins received his first crew assignment, the backup pilot for Gemini 7. He was the first of the fourteen to receive a crew assignment, though would not be the first to fly; that honor went to David Scott on Gemini 8. Collins never rated himself with the super athletes of the astronaut corps, like his fellow backup crew member Ed White, but he still tried to keep in shape, especially in the run up to Gemini 7, when he could have been called upon to spend 14 days in space.