You Know, I Go Around The Country

The Experience Of Being In Space Didn't Change My Perspective Of Myself Or Of The Planet Or Of Life. I Had No Spiritual Experience.

My Background Is In Physics, So I Was The Mission Specialist, Who Is Sort Of Like The Flight Engineer On An Airplane.

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.

The Pressure Suit Helps If Something Goes Wrong During Launch Or Re-entry - Astronauts Have A Way To Parachute Off The Shuttle. The Suits Protect You From Loss Of Pressure In Case Of Emergency.