I was interested in flying beginning at age 7, when a close family friend took me in his little airplane. And I remember looking at the wheel of the airplane as we rolled down the runway, because I wanted to remember the exact moment that I first went flying... the other thing growing up is that I was always interested in science.

As much as we've enjoyed it up here, we're also starting to look forward to seeing all the people back on Earth that we miss and love so much.

Although as a boy I had dreamed about going into space, I had completely forgotten about that until one day I received a call from an astronaut, who suggested that I should join the program.

I was interested in flying beginning at age 7, when a close family friend took me in his little airplane. And I remember looking at the wheel of the airplane as we rolled down the runway, because I wanted to remember the exact moment that I first went flying... the other thing growing up is that I was always interested in science.

As a physician and as a pilot, I think it lets me be a pretty good translator having one foot in the medical world and one foot in the flying world. Sometimes when the medical guys come in and speak medical stuff to the pilots, the pilots really don't know what they're saying.

I remember growing up thinking that astronauts and their job was the coolest thing you could possibly do... But I absolutely couldn't identify with the people who were astronauts. I thought they were movie stars.

The great thing about being an astronaut is you kind of get to do a little bit of everything. I mean, we're going to ride a rocket uphill.