After the successful completion of Gemini 7 , on January 24 , 1966 , Collins was assigned to the prime crew of Gemini 10 , but with John Young as mission commander , as White moved on to the Apollo program . Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin were designated as the backup commander and pilot respectively . The arrangements were disturbed by the deaths of the Gemini 9 crew , Bassett and Elliot See , in the February 28 , 1966 NASA T-38 crash . They were replaced on Gemini 9 by their backups , Stafford and Gene Cernan . Cernan thereby became the second of the fourteen to fly in space . Lovell and Aldrin became their backups , and Alan Bean and C. C. Williams took their place as the Gemini 10 backup crew . Collins would become the seventeenth American , and third member of his group , to fly in space
1966 NASA T-38 crash
1966 NASA T-38 crash
Michael Collins (astronaut)