Shuttle Commander Always In Right Space at Right Time

"We see her as somebody really special," said Truhill, now 76 and retired from flying. "She even had two children between flights, and that tickles us, too. For every reason they said we couldn't do it, she's proved them wrong."

But she never rubs anyone's nose in it. "In my job I'm not aware of the difference between male and female crew members," she told reporters recently. "It may be meaningful to the rest of the world that a woman is leading this flight, and I think that's great. For me, it's a way of life."

Like many astronauts, Collins has impeccable public relations skills, regularly serving up bromides on diverse subjects including the value of human spaceflight -- "Being an explorer is human destiny" -- and the repeated postponements of Discovery's launch -- "We're not going to fly until we're ready to fly."

She surrenders some personal tidbits: Her parents were her role models; she learned about flying by watching gliders in Elmira, the "Soaring Capital of America"; roller coasters "scare me to death"; and, yes, the guys used to call her Mom, and sometimes still do.

But she yields little information about her children, Bridget, 9, and Luke, 4, or her husband, Pat Youngs, a former Air Force pilot now flying for Delta Air Lines. Her telephone numbers -- and Youngs's -- are unlisted. She does not appear to like being called Mom by adults. She guards her privacy like a celebrity, because that's what she is.

But it's also beside the point, said former astronaut James D. Wetherbee, who commanded the 1995 mission to the Mir space station with Collins as the first woman ever to pilot a shuttle. "Deep down," Wetherbee said, paying her the ultimate pilot's compliment, "she just wants to fly."

This was not always apparent. Eileen Marie Collins was born in Elmira on Nov. 19, 1956, the second of four children to James Collins, a surveyor and postal worker, and his wife, Rose Marie. Her parents split up when she was 9, and she lived in public housing, graduating from Elmira Free Academy in 1974.

"I was always fascinated by the geometry in my father's job, and I wanted to be a teacher," she said, so she entered Corning Community College, close to home, and graduated with an associate's degree in mathematics and science in 1976.

So far, so ordinary. "She wasn't somebody who comes in and is super-gifted," said Lawrence Josbeno, chairman of the college's physics department. "She was a good student, but I tell my young women students today you could be Eileen Collins."

Maybe. Collins today is an almost mythical figure in Elmira, a frequent visitor who attends Mass at St. Peter & Paul's Church, writes inspirational columns for area newspapers and makes periodic public appearances. Corning Community College has a 20-inch telescope at the Eileen Collins Observatory.

But even though Collins talks today about watching "Star Trek" as a kid and going to Harris Hill to look at the gliders, her dedication to flight apparently arose, at least in part, because of a cold calculation she made at Corning: "There was an overflow of teachers. So I learned about airplanes."

And went to Syracuse. Anticipating the Air Force's upcoming change of heart about female pilots, she took flying lessons before her senior year, working as a waitress at Pudgie's Pizza to pay for them.