I will have a one-hour program called the Mission Watch, where I will describe details of the mission and give additional information about the lessons from space.

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.

My sympathies have always been for working-class people.

I will have a one-hour program called the Mission Watch, where I will describe details of the mission and give additional information about the lessons from space.

It was hard telling those kids...that I wasn't going to be there this year. And I knew I was going to miss them. I won't have an opportunity to see them again, unless they stop by the house. Now during the summer, I got lots of notes; kids would stop by the house. I'd be pulling weeds or something and they would come up and give me a hug and say, 'Oh, I can't believe it, this is so wonderful!' and just get very excited about it. It was hard not being in school. I would have loved to have gone back to school.

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

I cannot join the space program and restart my life as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my abilities as an educator with my interests in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies.