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In 2009 I went up on the space shuttle. I was in space for 16 days and docked at the space station for 11 days. The entire crew did five space walks, of which I was involved with three of them. When you're doing a space walk, you always have a buddy with you. It's a very dangerous environment when you're doing a space walk.

We also had to bring with us some desired scientific equipment over to the station as well as assemble new machines. For that, I had to conduct two space walks.

As always, we prepare for all sorts of contingencies. And the first few days of the flight up until docking on Day 3 are all spent really in the rendezvous because we launch at a time that puts us in an optimal position to catch up to station.

The nature of the shuttle was, we couldn't put a crew escape system in it.

Something people don't recognize is that being on the space station is probably a lot like being in some kind of confinement - like isolation.

It's a really big deal to do a spacewalk. It's much riskier than staying indoors. It's complex. It uses up a lot of the precious resources onboard. It uses up oxygen. It uses up carbon dioxide scrubbers.

Living inside the shuttle was a little like camping out. We ended up sleeping in our seats. You had to pay attention to housekeeping, not get things too dirty.

It's important to bring things back from the Space Station because, unlike somebody living at the house where the garbage truck comes by twice a week, they don't have that in space.

Everyone that I've talked to who's been to space has thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and what you often hear them say is: It was great, but we just had to come home.