Sally ride

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...

I had both male and female heroes.

I don't have any nicknames.

I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know...

Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.

I think eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help.

I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.

Well, we spend an awful lot of our time working and doing experiments. It's very busy up on the shuttle.

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.

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