Space is dark but, of course, when we're on the sun side of the Earth, we're in full illumination and we have all the reflection of the Earth below us, beautiful blue Earth and we're in daylight. Only on the back side, opposite side of the sun, it seems like night to us, too.

I took a Russian class at Notre Dame. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would fly someday in a Russian spacecraft with two cosmonauts, speaking only Russian.

When the guys come back in from the spacewalk, there really is a distinct smell of space; it's something I will never forget.

Well, the coolest thing I have seen so far, in terms of, like, me being an astronaut and seeing something unusual, was the rendezvous, the docking of a Progress spaceship.

A lot of scientists on Earth think of things that they could do in zero g. Things like the way metals cure, for example, and the way fluids react in space can tell us a lot about some of the unknowns we have on Earth.

I think if I had to choose, I would rather have gravity instead of zero gravity. It's fun for a while, but I'd rather live on Earth.

It's much easier for me to sleep in space than it is back home. We sleep in a cabin, and you can float inside.