With Artemis II now underway on its mission around the moon, NASA has return to crewed lunar exploration.
The launch has renewed attention not only on the four astronauts now flying the mission, but also on the trailblazers who helped make this moment possible, including retired astronaut Eileen Collins, whose life and career are the focus of the documentary “Spacewoman.”
Artemis II marks NASA’s first crewed mission around the moon in more than half a century. The flight carries astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen on a roughly 10-day mission to test the Orion spacecraft and other systems that NASA plans to rely on for future lunar landings.
The mission is a major step in the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon and establish a long-term presence there.
The launch also offers a fitting backdrop for "Spacewoman," a documentary that looks back at Collins’ role in expanding who gets to take part in human spaceflight.
Collins made history in 1995 as the first woman to pilot a space shuttle. Four years later, she became the first woman to command a shuttle mission. In 2005, she commanded STS-114, NASA’s high-stakes “return to flight” mission after the Columbia disaster.
Collins’ career unfolded during the shuttle era, but the barriers she broke still shape the space program today. Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch is now the first woman to travel beyond low-Earth orbit toward the moon, a milestone that underscores the broader changes Collins helped set in motion. Collins did not fly lunar missions herself, but her success in some of NASA’s most visible and demanding assignments helped redefine expectations about leadership, skill and representation in the astronaut corps.
Directed by Hannah Berryman and based in part on Collins’ memoir “Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars,” “Spacewoman” traces her journey from her childhood in upstate New York to the cockpit and command seat of the shuttle program. The film uses archival footage and interviews to explore both Collins’ professional achievements and the personal demands of a life spent preparing for and carrying out dangerous missions.
As Artemis II heads toward the moon, “Spacewoman” arrives as a reminder that NASA’s new chapter in lunar exploration was built on decades of earlier breakthroughs. The documentary places Collins’ story in that longer arc on the return to deep space is not only about new rockets and spacecraft, but also about the people who changed what was possible.
Guests:
Eileen Colins is an American retired NASA astronaut and Air Force colonel. A flight instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle and the first to command a Space Shuttle mission.
Hannah Berryman is the director of the documentary “Spacewoman.”
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