When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.
~ Sally Ride
The stars don't look bigger, but they do look brighter.
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.
But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.
No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.
One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.
There are aspects of being the first woman in space that I'm not going to enjoy.
Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.
Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.
The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.
I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.
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.
The view of Earth is spectacular.
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.
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 liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.
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!
I did not come to NASA to make history.
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.
All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.
