From day one, I have been told I am no different from the male astronauts. As a pilot, I flew in the sky. Now that I am an astronaut, I will fly in space.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was younger, humans went to the moon when I was about 4 years old, and I imagined that as I got older and became an adult that traveling in space was going to be fairly common and something that we all did. So I grew up believing that I'll be an astronaut just like these guys were that were going to the moon.
I think that over the years, whether they want to admit it or not, people have to admit that the women astronauts have performed just as well as the men astronauts.
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.
I always wanted to be an astronaut.
I was a naval officer and aviator. I tested airplanes and got selected to be an astronaut later on.
What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background, but motivation, perseverance, and desire - the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery.
To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.
Not until the space shuttle started flying did NASA concede that some astronauts didn't have to be fast-jet pilots. And at that point, sure enough, women started becoming astronauts.
I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.
I never declared I wanted to be an astronaut, as I considered that was presumptuous.