Astronaut Eileen Collins' 7 Year Old Was Afraid Her Mom Would Die in Space: 'I Would Not Wish That on Anybody' (Exclusive)

Astronaut Eileen Collins provides insight into her quest for space travel and how it has affected her as a parent with two young children, Bridget and Luke Youngs.

The retired NASA pilot and US Air Force colonel (68) is the subject of Hannah Berryman’s latest documentary, Spacewhich premiered at DOC NYC on November 16th.

Collins was the first woman to pilot a NASA Space Shuttle and command a Space Shuttle mission. She served as commander of the Return to Flight mission in July 2005, following the February 2003 explosion of the Columbia Space Shuttle that killed all seven astronauts on board.

Eileen Collins on October 2, 2005 in Chigasaki, Japan.

Koichi Kamoshida/Getty

Six months before the Columbia Space Shuttle exploded on its way back to Earth, Collins talked to Bridget, then 7, about the 1986 Challenger explosion. “And I told her it won’t happen again,” Collins tells PEOPLE. “And then just six months later we had an accident at Columbia and I tried to talk to her about it. She wouldn’t talk.”

Bridget, who is now 29, says in the documentary that she believed her mother would die: “She would tell me to hope for the best, but to expect the worst. I don’t think she intended it to sound as intense as it did. But the 7-year-old version of me was like, ‘Mommy’s going to die in space, and I’ve got to be ready for that.’ ”

Collins, who has been married to Bridget’s father, pilot Pat Youngs, since 1987, recalls her own reaction to her little girl’s fears. “I told my daughter, ‘I’m not going if I’m going to die. I don’t want to die. I’ll make sure it’s safe when I go,’ she says. “But she apparently, I found out later, didn’t believe it and still had that fear.”

Florida Mission Commander Eileen M. Collins in September 1998.

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“But honestly,” adds Collins, “I think she’s a lot stronger for it now. We have a very open good relationship, I think she’s a much stronger person after going through that. But I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

Take off! SpaceX launched its third manned mission to the International Space Station

Eileen Collins in the space shuttle Discovery in 1995.

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To help Bridget deal with her fears, Collins started a support program because she knew that “the children of other astronauts felt scared that seven astronauts had just died.” [in the Columbia explosion].”

She organized Sunday afternoon parties for families, especially for children. “I would take them to training sessions where they could see us in the simulator, in the plane, in the pool,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that everyone knew each other and had each other with that support. They were so afraid.”

“Every family thinks the explosion is going to happen again at the beginning,” Collins says, noting that the government agency must continue space travel. “We have to go, but we have to be safe.”

As she prepared for the 2005 Return to Flight mission, which would be her last, she tried to reassure her daughter that she would get her home safely.

Eileen Collins in “Spacewoman”.

Space

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Collins adds that while she and her fellow astronauts are serious, very procedural and mission-oriented, “we’re people too and we have families,” she says. “We have feelings. We have problems. We make mistakes. We try to go through life every day and deal with the problems that push us forward while taking care of our families.”

She says becoming a mother, while “not easy”, was the “best thing” she ever did. “It’s hard to be a mom and an astronaut. But it can be done.”

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Space flows on the DOC NYC website through Sunday, December 1st. Tickets can be purchased here.

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Source: HIS Education