Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.
— Sally Ride
I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.
No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.
When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.
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.
I had both male and female heroes.
The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.
Even though NASA tries to simulate launch, and we practice in simulators, it's not the same - it's not even close to the same.
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 why, I can't explain it.
All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in 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.
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.
The women's movement had already paved the way, I think, for my coming.
