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

Her cosmic aspirations ignited at a remarkably young age. "I was reading a magazine article on the Gemini astronauts. I was probably nine years old, and I thought that’s the coolest thing. That’s what I want to do," Collins recalled, a faint smile playing on her lips. This was the mid-1960s, a pivotal era when the Space Race was in full throttle, captivating the world and defining American heroism almost exclusively through male test pilots. The very notion of a "woman astronaut" was not just uncommon; it was effectively unheard of, certainly not officially sanctioned or even seriously considered