The trailblazer who made history as NASA’s first woman commander

She's an astronaut who broke through the glass ceiling. And he kept going.

Eileen Collins made history as the first woman to pilot and command a spacecraft, but despite her remarkable achievements, not everyone knows her name.

Now a feature-length documentary, Space Woman, chronicling her pioneering career, looks set to change that.

We meet Collins at the London Science Museum. She speaks softly, warmly and very down to earth, but you will quickly sense her focus and determination. She clearly has inner steel.

“I read an article in a magazine about the Gemini astronauts. I was probably nine years old and I thought it was the coolest thing. This is what I want to do,” she says.

“Of course, there were no women astronauts then. But I just thought I’d become a woman astronaut.”

But this little girl set even higher goals for herself – she wanted to be at the helm of a spaceship.

And the only way to achieve this was to join the army and become a test pilot.

In the Air Force, she stood out from the crowd and was selected for the astronaut program. She would fly the space shuttles, NASA's reusable “spaceplanes.”

She knew the world's eyes were on her when her first mission launched in 1995.

“As the first woman to pilot the space shuttle, I worked really hard at it because I didn't want people to say, 'Oh look, a woman made a mistake.' Because it wasn't just about me, it was about getting women to follow me,” she says.

“And I wanted female pilots to have that reputation of, 'Hey, they're really good.'

In fact, she was so good that she was soon promoted to commander, first at a different location.

Collins was also the parent of two young children. The fact that she was a working wife and mother was often brought up at press conferences at the time, and some journalists appeared surprised that she could be both.

But Collins says being a mom and a commander are “the two best jobs in the world.”

“But I will tell you that being a parent is harder than being a spaceship commander,” she laughs.

“The best thing I ever got about being a commander was being a parent because you have to learn how to say no to people.”

NASA's space shuttle missions, which have flown for three decades, have reached dizzying heights but also terrible lows.

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger suffered a catastrophic accident moments after launch, killing all seven crew members on board.

And in 2003, the space shuttle Columbia crashed over Texas at the end of its mission, killing its seven-member crew.

A piece of insulating foam on Columbia's fuel tank broke off during launch, damaging the heat shield with devastating consequences.

Columbia was unable to withstand the fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated as the world watched in horror.

Collins shakes his head as he remembers the disaster and the friends whose lives were lost.

But as commander, she had to take on the mantle—she would be responsible for the next shuttle flight.

Was she thinking about leaving at that moment?

“People throughout the shuttle program expected the commander to stick with it,” she says quietly.

“I think quitting a mission would be the opposite of brave… and I wanted to be a brave leader. I wanted to be a confident leader. I wanted to instill that confidence in other people.”

But when her mission finally took to the skies in 2005, the nightmare scenario repeated itself again. During launch, a piece of foam broke off.

This time, however, there was a plan in place to check the damage. But this meant conducting one of the riskiest maneuvers in the history of space.

Collins had to pilot the shuttle through a 360-degree flip while flying under the International Space Station. This allowed colleagues at the orbiting laboratory to photograph the underside of the craft and check whether the heat shield had been damaged.

“There were engineers and managers who said it couldn't be done, and all this explained why it was too dangerous,” she says.

“I listened to the discussion, they knew I was the commander, and I said, 'It looks like we can do this.'

Keeping her hands firmly on the controls and speaking calmly to mission control, Collins navigated the ship through a slow, graceful somersault. With the underside of the shuttle now visible, the damage was quickly discovered and a spacewalk was carried out to repair it.

This meant Collins and her team would get home safely.

This was Collins' last flight. She tells us that she always planned to stop after her fourth mission – to give others a chance to go into space.

And she saw many astronauts follow in her footsteps. Does she have any advice for the next generation dreaming of the stars?

“Doing your homework, listening to your teacher, paying attention in class and reading books will help you focus,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone.

Those who follow Collins into space will know how much she accomplished not only as a woman, but as an outstanding pilot and commander.

She says she has no regrets about ending her astronaut career. She made her decision and didn't look back. But there's still a wistful look in her eyes when we ask if she'd be tempted if a seat on the spaceship became available.

“Yes, I would like to go on a mission someday. When I get old, maybe I'll have a chance to go back to space.”