Looking down at the Earth, you started to pick up a sense of speed much more than I had noticed on orbit.

The real pleasure was having the chance to enjoy being weightless, and the other was to... spend some time looking out at this beautiful spaceship Earth that we're all lucky to inhabit.

The space shuttle has been a fantastic vehicle. It is unlike any other thing that we've ever built. Its capabilities have carried several hundred people into space.

I was selected to be an astronaut on a military program called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory back in '67 and that program got cancelled in '69 and NASA ended up taking half of us...

Living inside the shuttle was a little like camping out. We ended up sleeping in our seats. You had to pay attention to housekeeping, not get things too dirty.

Looking down at the Earth, you started to pick up a sense of speed much more than I had noticed on orbit.

If you want to go into space first time on a new vehicle that's never been flown, you want to go with a pro.