I don't think of myself as being a woman and having anything to prove.

I don't think of myself as being a woman and having anything to prove.

We want to explore. We're curious people. Look back over history, people have put their lives at stake to go out and explore ... We believe in what we're doing. Now it's time to go.

My daughter just thinks that all moms fly the Space Shuttle

I'm honored to be the first woman to have the opportunity to command the shuttle. I don't really think about that on a day-to-day basis because I really don't need to.

The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so thin. We know that we don't have much air - we need to protect what we have.

Some people said, “we don't want to risk astronauts lives anymore, we need to stop doing this”. The astronauts don't feel that wayWe fly for our country, we fly for humanity, we fly for exploration, we fly for a variety of reasons, and we don't stop flying because we have accidents.