At this year’s Athena Film Festival, watching Spacewoman made me feel inspired!

Spacewoman is a documentary about Elieen Collins, the first female to pilot and command a spacecraft, directed by British documentary filmmaker Hannah Berryman. The documentary follows Commander Collins’s life, starting with her rough beginnings in Elmira in upstate New York. Collins faced many challenges throughout her childhood, such as dealing with her father’s alcoholism, suffering from poverty, and watching her parents fight and go through a rough divorce. As a kid, Collins’s father would take her and her siblings to watch planes land and take off, and this inspired her to become a pilot. Collins saved her money by working multiple jobs to pay for her flight lessons and began lessons at age 19. 

Collins attended community college and before graduating from Syracuse with a degree in mathematics and economics. Following her undergraduate studies, she joined the Air Force. In 1990, she was selected to be a pilot astronaut by NASA, and in 1995, she flew her first space mission as a pilot on STS 63. Collins gave birth to her first child nine months later. She was a pilot again on STS-84 in 1997, and in 1999, she became the first female to command a US spacecraft on mission STS-93. The documentary also incorporates the experience of Bridget, Collins’ daughter, and her perspective and memories of watching her mother go into space and her struggle as a child in understanding the dangers associated with her mom’s job. Additionally, Collins discusses the difficulty of being a mom, wife, and astronaut. 

Collins discusses how it felt being a female pilot and astronaut in a male-dominated profession and her need to prove herself and not show emotion. In one scene, Collins describes saying goodbye to her family before going into quarantine before a space mission and the intense emotions she and her family were feeling, but as soon as she stepped into the conference room with her fellow astronauts, she went into work mode. In another scene, the documentary shows an old clip of Collins communicating with her family via video while she is in space. At the end of the call, Collins says goodbye but doesn’t tell her family that she loves them because she thought their call was going on TV for others to see her conversation. The constant need to hide emotion was a theme throughout the film. 

Lastly, the film highlighted the struggles of the NASA space program. The film discussed the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster during 2003, which disintegrated as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. The film discussed conflict and fear within the NASA program and Collins’s personal feelings towards needing to be a commander aboard mission STS-114 in 2005 to preserve the future of spaceflight. However, there is a tense moment during the mission when the astronauts discover a major problem with their spaceship that could affect their return home. The film also mentioned Bridget’s feelings towards her mom being a part of mission STS-114 and said that she viewed her mom as selfish and that she couldn’t understand why her mom would want to do a job that was so dangerous and risky. 

Overall, the film had many moments that were perfectly comical, emotional, stressful, and inspirational. Following the film, there was a post-screen conversation titled “Making Space for Women in Space” that discussed the important contributions of women in space-related fields and the impact of mentorship. The conversation was moderated by Illana Raia, the chair of the International Space Station National Lab’s Education Subcommittee, and the conversation featured Quincy Brown, Ph.D., Director of Space STEM and Workforce Policy, and Spacewoman’s director Hannah Berryman. 

I highly recommend this film to everybody. I thoroughly believe that this film can speak to viewers in many different ways. Additionally, Eileen Collins has a memoir titled “Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission.” I definitely plan on reading it! The film reminded me to have faith in my own strength. As Collins said in the film, “Until we are tested, we don’t know what we are capable of.” 

Image via Flickr