The Cool Things About Space Is When

Loneliness... Has Very Little To Do With Location. It's A State Of Mind. In The Centre Of Every City Are Some Of The Loneliest People In The World... Because Our Whole Planet Was Just Outside The Window, I Felt Even More... Connected To The Seven Billion Other People.

For The Last Several Years And Culminating In Six Months In Orbit Next Year, I've Been Training For My Third Space Flight. This One Is Almost In A Category Completely Different Than The Previous Two, Specifically To Live In On The Space Station For Six Months, To Command A Space Ship And To Fly A New Rocket Ship.

Square Astronaut, Round Hole. But Somehow, I'd Managed To Push Myself Through It, And Here Was The Truly Amazing Part: Along The Way, I'd Become A Good Fit. It Had Only Taken 21 Years.

Still, I Also Know That Most People, Including Me, Tend To Applaud The Wrong Things: The Showy, Dramatic Record-setting Sprint Rather Than The Years Of Dogged Preparation Or The Unwavering Grace Displayed During A String Of Losses. Applause, Then, Never Bore Much Relation To The Reality Of My Life As An Astronaut, Which Was Not All About, Or Even Mostly About, Flying Around In Space.

Competence Means Keeping Your Head In A Crisis, Sticking With A Task Even When It Seems Hopeless, And Improvising Good Solutions To Tough Problems When Every Second Counts. It Encompasses Ingenuity, Determination And Being Prepared For Anything.