Spacewoman: The Extraordinary Journey of Eileen Collins Spotlight

 

We don't know what we're capable of until we're tested. Eileen Collins endured arduous challenges to become the first woman to command the Space Shuttle. As a new era dawns for NASA, here's a chance to look back on the era when the United States space agency traded capsules for space planes, and sought international partnership with the scientific community. What issues did Eileen Collins struggle with as she refined her skills as an astronaut? And what price did her family have to pay to help her achieve her dreams?

Here's all the info from Haviland Digital and Tigerlily:

 

A Film About the Extraordinary Journey of Eileen Collins, the First Woman to Pilot and Command the Space Shuttle

SPACEWOMAN

Lands in LA Theaters May 28th &

Santa Barbara Theaters, May 29th!

 

**Official Selection – Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival 2025**

**Official Selection – DOC NYC Film Festival 2025**

**Official Selection – Athena film Festival 2025**

**Official Selection – Boulder International Film Festival 2025**

**Official Selection – Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival 2025**

Directed by Hannah Berryman

Produced by Keith Haviland and Natasha Dack Ojumu.

Written by Hannah Berryman

Featuring Colonel Eileen Collins, Bridget Youngs, Pat Youngs, Luke Youngs, Charlie Camarda, Cady Coleman, Dr. Mike Foale, Wayne Hale, Paul Hill, Marcia Dunn, and Margy Conklin

Astronaut Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot and command an American spacecraft. Born on the other side of the tracks in upstate New York, she smashed many glass ceilings in the US Air Force and at NASA in her career, culminating in four increasingly dramatic and dangerous space shuttle missions. With an incredible set of archival materials, intimate interviews, and a moving score by Marcelo Zarvos, Hannah Berryman’s nail-biting film shares the emotional journey experienced by Eileen’s family, and explores what level of risk is acceptable in human endeavour.

RT: 95 Minutes

 

For more, see the Spacewoman trailer on Youtube.

 

If you're in the Los Angeles or Santa Barbara regions, find a theater near you. 

 

Thanks to Falco Ink for sharing this announcement with us. 

The Astro Dalek

Rusty: Who are you? And for that matter, where am I?
Astro: I'm Astro Dalek, and I live in your dreams.
Rusty: I was dreaming of the Space Shuttle.
Astro: Yes, and you're disappointed that you'll never get to fly in one.
Rusty: It's not just that. America designed and tested so many different types of space planes. Then we failed to build on the shuttle program's strengths and go on to build more capable models. We'll never know what NASA could have achieved with space planes, had the United States continued to fund that area of research and development.

Astro: Perhaps, but there's still the International Space Station. If you study the right subjects, and get the right training, you might qualify as an astronaut. Then someday you could visit it in an Orion capsule.
Rusty: That would be cool, assuming Orion doesn't get cancelled like the Constellation program did.
Astro: If it does, there's always Russia's Soyuz capsules. Or maybe by that time, the American company SpaceX will have developed their Dragon capsule for Dalek use.
Rusty: I suppose it would be cool to travel into space in a spaceship named after Master's favorite mythological creature.

Astro: See, there's so many reasons to be optimistic. A great future of living and working in space awaits us, if we will all work hard to realize it. And who knows? The space shuttle serviced America's needs for more years than anyone would have anticipated. It proved the validity of the space plane concept. In fact, the Sierra Nevada Corporation is currently developing a space plane called the Dream Chaser.
Rusty: An appropriate name, given the realm in which we're having our conversation.
Astro: Indeed. And what better topic to discuss with another person, than that of our fondest dreams?

Rusty: I guess you're right. We may yet see another space plane era, perhaps even one that eclipses the greatest achievements of the shuttle era. Thanks for talking me around, if only in my dreams.
Astro: I'll be with you always, and with every Dalek who aspires to pursue our great destiny in space.

Rusty & Astro Daleks

Exploring The Space Shuttle

 Rusty: Look, there's the Space Shuttle!

I guess they're working on it. I hope they don't end up with any extra pieces!

From behind, it reminds me of an Imperial Star Destroyer. I wonder if Darth Vader ever rode in one. Maybe I'll sneak inside for a moment. 

These knobs and switches are cool. And all this to preserve the packaged chocolate pudding the astronauts will consume in space. I bet they wouldn't mind if I consumed one before I finished my exploration of the Space Shuttle. I mean, I'd only eat one…

Say, this cockpit is too cool. I can't imagine how the pilots know how to use so many instruments.

Artist: There you are! I was wondering where you had gotten to.
Rusty: Sorry. I guess time got away from me.
Artist: I know what you mean. This cockpit reminds me of the Millennium Falcon.
Rusty: Yeah, Han Solo and Chewbacca would totally dig it.
Artist: Hey, do you smell chocolate pudding?
Rusty: Umm…

Rusty & Artist Dalek

The Space Shuttle Escape System Test Vehicle

No signs accompanied this curiosity at the Joe Davies’ Heritage Park in Palmdale.  Lacking evidence to the contrary, I assumed it was a mockup to assist engineers during the design phase, or used by the astronauts during preflight simulations.  When I did a little Internet-investigation, I discovered I was wrong on both counts. 

During the Space Shuttle's design phase, NASA conducted numerous safety tests.  In 1977, four years before the first shuttle flight, this test vehicle was bolted onto a rocket sled.  According to Robert Pearlman at Collectspace.com, “The test worked fine with the overhead hatch blowing off and the ejection seat with a dummy shot out and the chute opened.  Then you could see the hatch fly down and slice the dummy in half.  OOPS!”

This, and more great photos, can be found at
Robert Pearlman's forum.

Test crash dummies lead incredibly dangerous lives, do they not?

Due to the way it blasted into and returned from space, NASA chose not to incorporate an escape capsule into the Space Shuttle’s design.  They installed ejections seats on Columbia’s first four flights, though.  And what kind of ejection seats did they use, you ask?  As far as I can ascertain, the ejection seats used for the crash tests, and those they later installed in the Columbia, were modified versions of those in the SR-71 Blackbirds.

Just another way that those beautiful reconnaissance planes served our country.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Robert Pearlman’s Forum

Our Visit to Edwards Air Force Base: Part 1

Planes parked outside the check-in building

I was a little disheartened when I received confirmation of our scheduled tour date, as the invitation stipulated that no cell phones or cameras would be allowed on Edwards Air Force Base.  Here I was, planning a weekend away around this tour, and I wouldn't be able to take any photographs!  Nonetheless, this was a place where history was made, and where important work was still being carried out.  It was a place I had wanted to visit since reading Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff.  So I ignored my first impulse to cancel the trip, and continued to plan a weekend trip around our tour of the base. 

As we checked in that morning, I was surprised by how many people spoke languages other than English, and presented different colored passports (instead of drivers licenses) for their identification.  Clearly, many visitors had come from farther away than San Diego to tour the base.  We walked around, studying some of the planes that sat outside the welcome center while the staff finished checking everyone in.  Then our tour guide, Don, called us over to the bus.  After we climbed aboard, the engine rumbled into life, and the bus rolled past the guard shack.

Planes sat outside the museum, and our time there was unstructured, allowing us to inspect the planes, or wander inside to watch a video, peruse the displays, and see the other aircraft inside.  There weren’t many of the latter, but Chuck Yeager’s familiar orange Bell X-1 hung from the ceiling, and its rocket engine sat on the floor with its housing removed so we could see all its component parts.  More engines and plane components were on display, as well as flight suits and uniforms from notable test pilots such as Yeager.  The video showed important moments from the past, and discussed how the base had evolved.  Models of all the experimental planes that had been tested there filled one wall.  Then we wandered outside to inspect the planes.

As the weather was pleasant, I hadn’t brought a cap with me.  I had brought a rolled up knitted hat in case my head got cold, after all.  I soon discovered this was a mistake.  The sky was so clear, and the sunlight so bright, that even with my sunglasses on, I started to get a headache.  I held a hand over my eyes as I squinted at some very cool planes, including a SR71 Blackbird, and a B52 Stratofortress.  Someone had thoughtfully set up a concrete picnic table beneath the B52’s wing, but lunchtime was hours away, so after inspecting all the planes (and a few helicopters), we headed back inside. 

After the tour, when we got the camera,
and (more importantly) my hat, out of the car.

Can you see how I'm looking down?
Even with my cap and sunglasses, I'm squinting.

Salt: Ooh, it's so bright, I can't see!
Pepper: Switch optical sensors to maximum polarization.

Shortly thereafter, Don began his talk, and we all took to the chairs as he told us about the base.  Rogers Dry Lake bed was the perfect place for Flight Test, as the area was remote, and the ground was relatively flat for such a large area.  Approximately half of the forty-four square miles are used as runways.  Larger aircraft like a B52, or (in past years) the Space Shuttle, are heavier, and land on one of the paved runways.  But the clay suffices for most of the lighter aircraft, so the Air Force merely paints a long, straight line of paint, and adds a few lights, to create additional runways.  With an average of 350 days of bright, clear skies each year, and all that hard, flat clay to land on (whether a plane lands as scheduled, or performs an emergency landing on unmarked ground), it’s the perfect location for testing experimental aircraft designs and equipment. 

More tomorrow.

Dragon Dave 

Where NASA and Star Wars Collide

At the David L. Mason Children’s Museum, located within the Dunedin Fine Art Center, children can live their dreams.  They can play in mockups of a Gemini Capsule or a Space Shuttle, they can draw and color at an Apollo desk, and they can dance with a stormtrooper.  In the latter, a snippet from “The Return of the Jedi” has been ingeniously altered so that a stormtrooper dances and plays a trombone while Emperor Palpatine sits in his black chair, stares out his large observation window, and ignores you.  (Given the way he treats his apprentices, that’s probably a good thing).  Children can grab an astronaut helmet, a stormtrooper helmet, or other Science and Sci-fi accouterments and dance to the swinging stormtrooper’s tune.  A camera picks up their movements, and places them alongside the stormtrooper on a TV screen.  Such a fusion of real Science and Sci-fi might inspire them to one day work in the space industry.  How cool would that be?

Fun and play also take place at the stop motion area.  Children can choose from the selection of toys, and place them on a miniature film set.  One click forms the beginning of a movie, and a small monitor shows them their previous picture, so they can move the item, or add others, and then click the camera again.  After awhile, kids will want to chart the progress of their movie, so they can hit “Play,” and their little stop motion animated short will play from beginning to end, as many times as they want.  (If memory serves, parents could bring a digital memory card, and return home with their child’s movie).  Your children might grow up to make movies like “Clash of the Titans” or “Wallace and Grommit” someday.  How cool would that be?

The museum offers a Visual Arts Camp during the summer, and at other times of the year, there are special exhibits dedicated to Science, Sci-fi, and Fantasy.  On the day we attended, they hosted “Intergalactic, a Mixed Media Invitational.”  Had we attended earlier in the year, we could have seen “My Favorite Martian—Self Portrait as Alien.”  If your child makes something impressive, the staff might display it in the children’s art room, in which an X-Wing and a Millenium Falcon have been suspended from the ceiling.  Just make sure that you take them to the gift shop, where they can be inspired by a door that could be a spaceship, an inhabited asteroid, or something else really imaginative. 

When is a door not a door?  When it’s an alien’s face, an upside-down hovercraft, or a self-propelled beauty compact that comes to hand immediately when needed, that’s when.  (Only this case, it’s also a door).

Of course, you can always let them take home a memento from their visit.  Just be sure to sign them up for classes.  Lots of classes.  

Dragon Dave