I don't have any nicknames.

Studying whether there's life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there's something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That's something that is almost part of being human, and I'm certain that will continue.

The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.

I find myself looking around for other new, interesting opportunities to dive into.

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

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

There's a huge amount of pressure on every astronaut, because when you get right down to it, the experiments that are conducted on a space flight, or the satellites that are carried up, the work that's to be done, is important and expensive work, and you are up there for a week or two on a Space Shuttle flight. The country has invested a lot of money in you and your training, and the Space Shuttle and everything that's in it, and you have to do things correctly. You can't make a mistake during that week or two that you're in space.