When you can feel that close to something you're used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person.

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!

Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.

Our future lies with today's kids and tomorrow's space exploration.

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 had both male and female heroes.

NASA has to approve whatever we wear, so there are clothes to choose from, like space shorts - we wear those a lot - and NASA T-shirts.