Collins

Collins was nominally Episcopalian, while Finnegan came from a staunchly Roman Catholic family. Collins's father had been raised a Catholic, but converted to Protestantism when he married. Collins still rates the second group of nine as the best group of astronauts ever selected by NASA. Collins applied for a new course offered into the basics of spaceflight (other students included Charles Bassett, Edward Givens and Joe Engle). Collins went through the same process as with his first applications, though didn't take the psychiatric evaluation. Collins picked David Scott in the number one position. Collins never rated himself up with the super athletes of the astronaut corp like his fellow backup crew member Ed White but still tried to keep in shape, especially in the run up to Gemini 7, when he could have been called upon to spend 14 days in space. Collins found it interesting that some cosmonauts were doing helicopter training like their American compatriots and Belyayev said that he hoped to make a circum-lunar flight soon. Collins liked the idea and found a photo in a National Geographic magazine, traced it and added the lunar surface below and Earth in the background.