It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.

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.

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

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.

When you can feel that close to something you're used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person.

I had both male and female heroes.

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.