We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form.

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

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

Astronauts will remain the explorers, the pioneers-the first to go back to moon and on to Mars. But I think it's really important to make space space available to as many people as we can. It's going to be a while before we can launch people for less than $20 million a ticket. But that day is coming.

Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in.

The experience of being in space didn't change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.

Once you are assigned to a flight, the whole crew is assigned at the same time, and then that crew trains together for a whole year to prepare for that flight.