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.

Hello from above our magnificent planet Earth.

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.

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.

I can't think of anything specific growing up that pointed me toward NASA at all. I was interested in the Moon landings just about the same as everyone else of my generation. But I never really thought about being an astronaut or working in space myself.

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.

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.