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.

The nature of the shuttle was, we couldn't put a crew escape system in it.

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

You're going very fast when you're on orbit, going around the world once every hour and a half.

This vehicle is performing like a champ. I've got a super spaceship under me.

Having the opportunity to fly the first flight of something like a space shuttle was the ultimate test flight.

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...