But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.

The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.

I love the John Glenn model... I may call NASA in 25 years or so, and see if they'd like to send me to Mars.

For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.

The best advice I can give anybody is to try to understand who you are and what you want to do, and don't be afraid to go down that road and do whatever it takes and work as hard as you have to work to achieve that.

If we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys.

Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.