The biggest technical challenge to sending astronauts on farther and longer missions is biomedical: How do we keep them healthy?
Leroy Chiao
One of my challenges was to try to photograph the Great Wall of China. And I did actually take some photos, but it was hard to discern the wall with the naked eye.
An eclipse is one phenomenon that is actually more impressive from the ground.
Growing up in the 1960s, I can't remember a time when I wasn't fascinated by airplanes and rockets.
I'm skeptical of claims that we've been visited by aliens from another planet or other dimension, but I don't rule it out 100 percent. I have an open mind, and I do believe there's other life in the universe.
Donald Trump's administration is floating a proposal to return to the moon - and to shut down the International Space Station to help pay for it. The first part of this idea is good. The second is horrible.
After earning my university degrees and working for a few years, I wrote to NASA to request an application package. Seven months later, after I applied, I received a call inviting me to Houston to interview. That itself was thrilling; it meant that I was one of the 100 or so who would be interviewed, chosen from several thousand applicants.
As astronauts know better than anyone else, risks, incidents, and mishaps are inevitable in the development of any high-performance vehicle. The emergence of supersonic flight during the 1940s and of the Century Series of fighters in the 1950s came with the loss of several test pilots. Still, it was a glorious time.
There were different challenges along the way. Certainly the food shortage was unpleasant.
I got my undergraduate degree in chemical engineering.
If there is life out there that's so much more advanced than we are, and they know either how to travel great distances in short amounts of time, or they're able to come from a parallel universe into ours, why don't they just come and show themselves?
When I was at NASA, I had a house on a small private airstrip that we shared between the flying community. I had a hangar in my backyard with my airplane in it so I could just fly from my home.
You might have heard about a transformation that can occur when someone first sees Earth from space - how it becomes harder to think about 'my country' or 'my people' and harder not to think about 'our planet.' I can tell you, that transformation is real.
Studying engineering was natural for me; I was always interested in technology and building things.
I had done everything I could do as an astronaut, and we have a long line of inexperienced astronauts waiting for their first missions, and so my role really should be to step aside and help them prepare for their missions, rather than to try to get another mission.
Did I think about the risks? Of course I did. Anyone who says otherwise is not being completely honest. The amount of energy it takes to bring a spacecraft to orbital speed, and the forces it endures on re-entry, makes risk impossible to avoid.
'Star Trek' was inspiring to me.
I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.
I remember taking a space walk on the ISS. There I was, wrench in hand, tightening bolts on a new module. It was such a mundane task. But when I looked in one direction, there was Earth floating in vivid blues and greens. In the other direction, I could see the blackest black conceivable, punctured by unwavering pinpoints of starshine.
One day, people will be able to buy tickets to visit space.
Of course, you'll have to meet the physical and psychological demands. A space walk takes a lot of energy.
I remember looking at the moon as an 8-year-old and marveling that there were two astronauts in a lander on the surface, getting ready to go out and actually walk. That settled it for me: I knew I was going to at least try to become an astronaut. I wanted to be like those guys.
The most interesting thing was looking out the window and taking photographs of different places on Earth.
But a lot of that kind of work is done pre-flight, coordinating efforts with the flight directors and the ground teams, and figuring out how you're going to operate together.
There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped me in my career as an astronaut, it was more the general education in engineering. Also, it was a very difficult and rigorous course. So, it made me strong and resourceful.
Coming down under a parachute is quite different as well. You hit the ground pretty hard, but all the systems work very well to keep it from hurting, so it doesn't even hurt when you hit. It was a great experience to be able to do both.
I hope that China will continue with space exploration. It would be logical to have international co-operation. I hope that it will come about and that I can be involved in it.
I loved flying as much as I thought I would and continue to fly aircraft.
I spent a lot of my time working in the American module, and he would stay in the Russian segment working on his things, and we'd meet up at meal times. So it actually worked out very well.
I think it's good to have competition. Now we have a third country that can launch astronauts, so it's good for all of us. It makes us a little bit more competitive and wanting to be the leader.
I would say keep supporting space flight, keep telling the public and the politicians why it's important to advance science and explore the galaxy. I encourage the Japanese to keep doing what they're doing.
Our task was doing maintenance and repairs to keep the station in a good state for the return of the shuttle flights and resumption of major ISS construction.
Tinkering is something we need to know how to do in order to keep something like the space station running. I am a tinkerer by nature.
Well, it's still a bit uncertain, but I will do the consulting, and I'll see how I can contribute. But I'm sure whatever I do will involve the space program. That's where my passion is.
I was eight years old when I saw the Apollo moon landing in 1969. I was riveted.
I always say getting my bachelor's was the single hardest thing I've done in my life. Once I got to university, I was working harder than I ever had before and, for the first time in my life, I was getting bad grades. It was demoralising.
I was a graduate student in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan called for the construction of a new space station. I knew then that I wanted to apply for the astronaut program, and this was an exciting development.
The United States ended the space shuttle program in 2011, after the ISS was complete. We gave up a national treasure forever.
In order to do anything worthwhile, one must take calculated risks.
Science does not just drive space travel - space travel also drives science.
You're very well trained for the spacewalk, so when you go outside, it's not like the movies.
I don't think anyone flies into space without some form of fundamental introspection about what life is about.
I think there's all kinds of life out there, including intelligent life, but the reason we haven't found each other is because of vast distances.
