On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.

On both of my flights, everything went very well.

The most important steps that I followed were studying math and science in school. I was always interested in physics and astronomy and chemistry and I continued to study those subjects through high school and college on into graduate school. That's what prepared me for being an astronaut; it actually gave me the qualifications to be selected to be an astronaut.

NASA has to approve whatever we wear, so there are clothes to choose from, like space shorts - we wear those a lot - and NASA T-shirts.

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

Ever been to Disneyland? That was definitely an E ticket!

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.