And now for Return to Flight, I'm chief of robotics working in the astronaut office in Houston, as a Canadian.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My odyssey to become an astronaut kind of started in grad school, and I was working, up at MIT, in space robotics-related work; human and robot working together.
Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.
Fortunately, I got called down to NASA for an interview. And one thing led to the next, and one day I got that call. I've been here about seven years now and am really enjoying it.
During my 8 years as chairman, I had the privilege to peer into the future to see dynamic citizen astronauts returning to and from the heavens which we can expect in the future.
I worked for some very good people who have helped me along the way and actually enabled me to have the opportunity to be selected to join the Astronaut Corps.
I was selected to be an astronaut on a military program called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory back in '67. That program got cancelled in '69 and NASA ended up taking half of us.
And then I graduate two years later, in 1998, with my class. And, since then I've been here in Houston for training basically. And I was very happy to be assigned to this mission.
I was a naval officer and aviator. I tested airplanes and got selected to be an astronaut later on.
I think the astronaut job is the best job in the world. I realized when I was older and started applying for it that it's a pretty cool job.
My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.