The Astronauts Who Came In With Me

We Can See Cities During The Day And At Night, And We Can Watch Rivers Dump Sediment Into The Ocean, And See Hurricanes Form.

Once You Are Assigned To A Flight, The Whole Crew Is Assigned At The Same Time, And Then That Crew Trains Together For A Whole Year To Prepare For That Flight.

I Never Went Into Physics Or The Astronaut Corps To Become A Role Model. But After My First Flight, It Became Clear To Me That I Was One. And I Began To Understand The Importance Of That To People. Young Girls Need To See Role Models In Whatever Careers They May Choose, Just So They Can Picture Themselves Doing Those Jobs Someday. You Can't Be What You Can't See.

Anything From Making A Mistake On An Experiment That Would Ruin Some Scientist On Earth's Experiment - Career, Potentially - To Doing Something Wrong With The Satellite That A Country Was Depending On For Its Communications, To Making Some Mistake That Could Actually Cost You And The Crew Either A Mission Or Your Lives. So There Is A Lot Of Pressure That's Put On Every Astronaut To Just Make Sure That He Or She Understands Exactly What To Do, Exactly When To Do It, And Is Trained And Prepared To Carry It Out.

I Think It's Important For Little Girls Growing Up, And Young Women, To Have One In Every Walk Of Life. So From That Point Of View, I'm Proud To Be A Role Model!