All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
Sally Ride
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.
When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.
The stars don't look bigger, but they do look brighter.
The view of Earth is spectacular.
For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.
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!
The pressure suit helps if something goes wrong during launch or re-entry - astronauts have a way to parachute off the shuttle. The suits protect you from loss of pressure in case of emergency.
I did not come to NASA to make history.
Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.
For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.
Studying whether there's life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there's something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That's something that is almost part of being human, and I'm certain that will continue.
Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.
So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.
When the space shuttle's engines cut off, and you're finally in space, in orbit, weightless... I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that's when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.
It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!
One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.
The experience of being in space didn't change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.
After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.
So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.
Some astronauts sleep in sort of beds - compartments that you can open up and crawl into and then close up, almost like a little bedroom.
It's no secret that I've been reluctant to use my name for things.
It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.
I've spent my whole life not talking to people, and I don't see why I should start now.
The women's movement had already paved the way, I think, for my coming.
We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form.
My parents must have done a great job. Anytime I wanted to pursue something that they weren't familiar with, that was not part of their lifestyle, they let me go ahead and do it.
On both of my flights, everything went very well.
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 don't have any nicknames.
Once you are assigned to a flight, the whole crew is assigned at the same time, and then that crew trains together for a whole year to prepare for that flight.
I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.
The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.
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.
Even though NASA tries to simulate launch, and we practice in simulators, it's not the same - it's not even close to the same.
I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know why, I can't explain it.
I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.
I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.
On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.
But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.
I think eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help.
Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.
The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.
I had both male and female heroes.
So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.
I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.
The most anxious time was during launch, just because that is so dramatic.
Well, we spend an awful lot of our time working and doing experiments. It's very busy up on the shuttle.
No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.
I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.
