I have the LIFE magazine of the men walking on the moon.

I told them how excited I would be to go into space and how thrilled I was when Alan Shepard made his historic flight, and when John Kennedy announced on the news that the men had landed safely on the moon, and how jealous I was of those men.

I really don't want to say goodbye to any of you people.

My job in space will be to observe and write a journal. I am also going to be teaching a class for students on earth about life in space and on the space shuttle and conducting experiments.

When I'm 60, maybe, I'll look at my pile of papers and wonder, What really happened that year?

My sympathies have always been for working-class people.

Space is for everybody. It's not just for a few people in science or math, or for a select group of astronauts. That's our new frontier out there, and it's everybody's business to know about space.