I stayed in the astronaut program until 1993. People ask me why I left. I thought I had a lot of things to contribute that would be difficult to do if I stayed. I thought I could have a stronger voice as an advocate for space exploration. So I ended up starting my own technology consulting company.
— Mae Jemison
I wanted to be a professional dancer for a period of time, and I did a lot of dancing and choreography and got paid for it.
I always knew I'd go to space.
I went to school at night in L.A. to brush up on my engineering while I applied to the astronaut program. I really did not know if I would get in. It was the year after the Challenger accident in 1987.
I think science fiction helps us think about possibilities, to speculate - it helps us look at our society from a different perspective. It lets us look at our mores, using science as the backdrop, as the game changer.
Science provides an understanding of a universal experience. Arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.
Sometimes people ask me how difficult the astronaut program was, but being in Sierra Leone, being responsible for the health of more than 200 people, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at age 26 - that prepared me to take on a lot of different challenges.
The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity.
You have to actually be weighted to something to do the moonwalk, you know.
