All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.

Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in.

For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.

Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.

I did not come to NASA to make history.

Studying whether there's life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there's something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That's something that is almost part of being human, and I'm certain that will continue.

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!

The view of Earth is spectacular.

When the space shuttle's engines cut off, and you're finally in space, in orbit, weightless... I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that's when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.

The stars don't look bigger, but they do look brighter.

When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.

The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.

So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.

Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.

The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.

After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.

There are aspects of being the first woman in space that I'm not going to enjoy.

The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.

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.

One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.