Shuttle Chief Eclipsed Earhart, Gore Proclaims
Astronaut Eileen Collins, the first female shuttle commander, was welcomed back from space Wednesday and hailed by Vice President Al Gore as a bigger hero than Amelia Earhart.
“She has not only equaled but surpassed Amelia Earhart in the history of flight,” Gore told the welcoming crowd, which was filled with a larger-than-usual proportion of women and girls.
In February 1995, the 42-year-old Air Force colonel became the first woman to pilot a shuttle on what was her first shuttle mission.
She took with her a scarf worn by Earhart, an early aviation pioneer who vanished over the Pacific in 1937 while attempting to become the first woman to fly around the globe.
As Collins’ 3-year-old daughter Bridget, clad in a jumper bearing the Stars and Stripes, sat in the front row of the audience, her mother grinned graciously as Gore congratulated her.
Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. In your inbox three times per week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
