It was a real honor for me to get to be the first woman astronaut. I think it's really important that young girls that are growing up today can see that women can be astronauts too. There have actually been a lot of women, who are astronauts, that that's a career that's open to them.

Eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help. Whether it's going to be a consortium or one entity remains to be seen. I could be wrong. I could be one of the old fogies! Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing. It happens. A company has to be willing to bear the risk of its rocket failing. It's a very large capital investment.

If it wasn't for the women's movement, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Our future lies with today's kids and tomorrow's space exploration.

So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.

That's something that is almost part of being human and I'm certain that will continue.

I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.