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

I had both male and female heroes.

The rockets light! The shuttle leaps off the launch pad in a cloud of steam and a trail of fire.

It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.

I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.

The astronauts who came in with me in my astronaut class - my class had 29 men and 6 women - those men were all very used to working with women.

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.