I had both male and female heroes.

Astronauts will remain the explorers, the pioneers-the first to go back to moon and on to Mars. But I think it's really important to make space space available to as many people as we can. It's going to be a while before we can launch people for less than $20 million a ticket. But that day is coming.

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

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

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.

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.

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.