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

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

The view of earth is spectacular from space. Most people imagine that when astronauts look out the window of the shuttle they see the whole earth like that big blue marble that was made famous by the flights that went to the moon. But the shuttle is much, much closer than those astronauts were. So we don't see the whole planet, the whole ball at once, we just see parts of it.

It's no secret that I've been reluctant to use my name for things.

Anything from making a mistake on an experiment that would ruin some scientist on earth's experiment - career, potentially - to doing something wrong with the satellite that a country was depending on for its communications, to making some mistake that could actually cost you and the crew either a mission or your lives. So there is a lot of pressure that's put on every astronaut to just make sure that he or she understands exactly what to do, exactly when to do it, and is trained and prepared to carry it out.

But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.

Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.