The Navy's paid for you to go through school, and then they need doctors to go out and take care of people who are in various different parts of the world. I decided to pay back my time first as an undersea medical officer. I was stationed in Scotland.

Gravity is one variable in a lot of scientific processes. If you can remove gravity or minimize its effect, then you can understand the other processes that are going on.

Other than motherhood, the eight years that I spent at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I have incredibly fond memories of. It's a beautiful place, with four seasons up in Wisconsin. And really wonderful people.

Some things are only capable of being done in space. Examples of that are looking at our Earth from that far away, and understanding the entire processes of storms and weather patterns, and oceans, and coastlines.

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.

Gravity pulls our bodily fluids down, like water in a glass goes to the bottom part of a glass. In space, the water doesn't stay in the bottom of the glass. It distributes itself evenly over time throughout the entire volume of the glass.

Certainly my parents were a huge influence. They always expected the most out of all of us. And expected us to do our very best. I'm thankful to them for allowing me to do what I wanted to do.