You're always under the microscope, and you don't know which mission you're going to get. It's a surprise.

Definitely you don't become famous by doing something bad; that's a professional death sentence. You remember that whatever you do, someone will be watching, and you study all the time. It sounds terrible, but you get used to it. I'm 45, and I'm still at school, essentially.

Nobody is going anywhere in 10 years.

Most astronauts are very down-to-earth people. Many of us, three-quarters, have an engineering degree, and we have a very Cartesian, rational approach to things. You don't go and get swept off your feet. That's not your job and that's not why you're hired. So if you get so mesmerized that you forget to do what you're supposed to do, whether it's to open the cargo door of the space shuttle or configure something inside, then you should not be there as a professional operator.

If anything, when you're up in space and you're inside a space ship, which is your home, and without which you would not survive, you know that Earth is your home. This is the only place you can return. In fact we're very meticulous. Part of our job is to maintain the spaceship. If we apply the same kind of model to Earth maybe we'd have a different outlook.

Some people will always be volunteers to explore, and it is, in my mind, a privilege.

You're always under the microscope, you don't know which mission you're going to get. It's a surprise.