I always loved science and math growing up. I was born in Iran; I grew up there and then came to the United States when I was about 16 years old. And I thought that this was my opportunity to get involved with something really cool and great.

My advice to everyone is find something that you love to do and you are passionate about. Because if you're not passionate about something, it's very difficult to be dedicated to it.

I've been very fortunate, because sometimes it's difficult to work with your spouse. But in our case, it's a great working relationship, and we have complementary skills which makes it easy to work together. So I've been very fortunate in that regard.

Being an immigrant and staring life over, you learn to be a survivor and how to face your challenges and basically overcome them. And that has been a great skill set that I've developed and has helped me in my career.

Space travel is a dream for many men and women. I think my trip will be perceived differently by different genders because for women, a lot of time, not only space travel, it's not accessible to everyone, but is even less accessible to women, there are a lot more barriers for them especially if they live in countries where things like space travel, engineering, any science and technology-related field would be considered a more male-dominated field. And so I want to show them that there is nothing preventing woman, or making them less qualified to be involved in any of these fields.

I wasn't frightened going to outer space. I'd been living this in my head for many, many years, so I sort of had played all of these scenarios of flying into space and seeing earth. I think I was very prepared for it. It was almost a completely joyful, very happy, very exciting experience, and I didn't have time or any desire to think about what things could go wrong.

The biggest influence in my life has been by husband, who is also my partner in the business. We started our companies together, and he's always been there encouraging me to take on new challenges in my life. And when I do take them on, he's right beside me supporting and helping me through all the difficult time.