If they asked me if I wanted to go into space tomorrow, I'd do it in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if they asked me if I wanted to go into training for three years and then go into space again, I'd probably say no.

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.

My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.

Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in.

But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.

But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.

One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.