The microgravity or the very, very low amount of gravity that we have up in space forces some changes in different processes. It forces changes in us as human beings.

There's a lot of different things that we do during life that could personally harm us and I choose not to stop doing those things.

This has been a great experience for me. The first couple of days you don't always feel too well. You adjust to the fluid shifting, how to fly through space without hitting things or anybody else. But then you get in a groove.

If you're trying to get someone who's sick with a fever off of a submarine and it's cold and raining outside, the only way in and out of a submarine, generally, is through a fairly narrow hatch.

It's such a long mission and we get to spend so much time in space... we're doing such exciting research. And I don't want to overemphasize the life science research, but as a physician the life science research that we're doing is extremely exciting.

I feel blessed to be here representing our country and carrying out th research of scientists around the world... I hope you could feel the positive energy that beamed to the whole planet as we glided over.

I have a computer screen near my seat where I monitor the overall health of the vehicle and pick up any problems that might be occurring early on or once we see any kind of a malfunction or anything unusual that's happening, we can look at the data and figure out what that is.