New standards for safety are now in place and Canada has helped provide tools and techniques that were needed. Technologies like these are innovative and represent great achievements for us.

You're in orbit over the Earth. And suddenly it's very, very quiet. It's dramatic. You realize you're floating in the straps in your chair. And you take off your seat belt and float over to the window and look out, and you realize, "I'm not looking at a picture, here." I couldn't process it all. Even if I forget everything else in my life, that will stay with me, burned into my brain until the day I die.

I went to military college in Canada and graduated as an officer in the Navy but also as an engineer.

In 1983, NASA invited Canada to fly three payload specialists, in part because we had contributed the robotic arm that is used on the shuttle.

New standards for safety are now in place and Canada has helped provide tools and techniques that were needed. Technologies like these are innovative and represent great achievements for us.

It is a challenge to have your launch date slip continuously.

Canada has made a strong commitment as a partner in the International Space Station and, like the other partners, wishes to see the assembly of this unique orbiting laboratory continue.