The most anxious time was during launch, just because that is so dramatic.

I haven't written my memoirs or let the television movie be made about my life.

Some astronauts sleep in sort of beds - compartments that you can open up and crawl into and then close up, almost like a little bedroom.

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.

I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job.

For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.

I think 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.