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I think there's something about traveling in airplanes all the time that's not the healthiest thing in the world for you.

It is cool to make a pilot because you get to do all the fun stuff, and then you get to leave when all the tough stuff starts.

I always wanted to be a pilot.

When you're making a pilot, what you're mostly thinking is, 'Please let this be a real job, please.'

And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning.

Aviation is for the common man. My goal is to enable everyone to fly. It shouldn't be only for the rich.

It's much easier to fail when you're in the pilot, early stage, when it's less expensive and you're exploring than when you're way out the door and you've spent all this money. Industry is smart: structured to have skunkworks and pilot phases.

I'll admit I wanted to be a pilot, originally.

Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business.

Each test pilot I know considers him, or herself, now that there are women, to be the very best. It's very demeaning to step down the ladder once in a while.