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

For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds.

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.

I think it's important for little girls growing up, and young women, to have one in every walk of life. So from that point of view, I'm proud to be a role model!

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

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

There are lots of opportunities out there for women to work in these fields, ... Girls just need support, encouragement and mentoring to follow through with the sciences.