If anything, the overriding emotion is gonna just be excitement.

It's not the Olympics. It's Concord, New Hampshire, and a homecoming should reflect the community I'm part of.

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?

If I can get some student interested in science, if I can show members of the general public what's going on up there in the space program, then my job's been done.

I can remember in early elementary school when the Russians launched the first satellite. There was still so much unknown about space. People thought Mars was probably populated.

If anything happened, I think my husband would have to deal with that as the time came.