We also knew it would be difficult, because of the financial condition of the family, for me to go to college.

I guess those of us who have been with NASA kind of understand the tremendous excitement and thrills and celebrations and national pride that went with the Apollo program is just something you're not going to create again, probably until we go to Mars.

I just wanted to be the first one to fly for America, not because I'd end up in the pages of history books.

I think first of all you have to be there for the right reason.

The pilot looked at his cues of attitude and speed and orientation and so on and responded as he would from the same cues in an airplane, but there was no way it flew the same. The simulators had showed us that.

You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.

We wanted to be in great shape, we wanted to be able to cope with zero gravity, we wanted to be able to cope with accelerations and decelerations and so on. So all of us trained so that we were probably in the best physical condition we had ever been in up until that point.