Quote

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.

There's going to be space travel at some point.

Now, I've never flown in space; but the folks who have say that on landing day, you know, you've just spent maybe a week and a half, sometimes two weeks in orbit and you're used to the things happening slowly in space.

Astronauts are very professional and when they're preparing for launch, they prepare for it as the most serious endeavor of our lives.

When you see the orbiter headed out the launch pad and then crawling up the hill and being hard down on the pad, it does something to you.

It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.

Space travel for everyone is the next frontier in the human experience.

My fear is dying badly, through illness or injury. But what a glorious demise it would be to burn up in space.

You've done it in the simulator so many times, you don't have a real sense of being excited when the flight is going on. You're excited before, but as soon as the liftoff occurs, you are busy doing what you have to do.