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Stories had always been told about male genies coming out of bottles, but they were usually fat, old men. Never had the genie been a gorgeous woman, so that idea really appealed to me, and I created the series based on that premise.

The world is full of genies waiting to grant your wishes.

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.

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.

The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.

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.

I always wanted to be an astronaut.

Every astronaut flew into space for a living. But while NASA has not solved the security problems, I would not put me back into a shuttle - and no other astronaut. The confidence is shaken.

To me, there is something superbly symbolic in the fact that an astronaut, sent up as assistant to a series of computers, found that he worked more accurately and more intelligently than they. Inside the capsule, man is still in charge.

I never declared I wanted to be an astronaut, as I considered that was presumptuous.