Quotes from Leroy Chiao

In order to do anything worthwhile, one must take calculated risks.

I remember taking a space walk on the ISS. There I was, wrench in hand, tightening bolts on a new module. It was such a mundane task. But when I looked in one direction, there was Earth floating in vivid blues and greens. In the other direction, I could see the blackest black conceivable, punctured by unwavering pinpoints of starshine.

You're very well trained for the spacewalk, so when you go outside, it's not like the movies.

You might have heard about a transformation that can occur when someone first sees Earth from space - how it becomes harder to think about 'my country' or 'my people' and harder not to think about 'our planet.' I can tell you, that transformation is real.

I don't think anyone flies into space without some form of fundamental introspection about what life is about.

Science does not just drive space travel - space travel also drives science.

The United States ended the space shuttle program in 2011, after the ISS was complete. We gave up a national treasure forever.

'Star Trek' was inspiring to me.

I was eight years old when I saw the Apollo moon landing in 1969. I was riveted.

Well, it's still a bit uncertain, but I will do the consulting, and I'll see how I can contribute. But I'm sure whatever I do will involve the space program. That's where my passion is.

There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped me in my career as an astronaut, it was more the general education in engineering. Also, it was a very difficult and rigorous course. So, it made me strong and resourceful.

Did I think about the risks? Of course I did. Anyone who says otherwise is not being completely honest. The amount of energy it takes to bring a spacecraft to orbital speed, and the forces it endures on re-entry, makes risk impossible to avoid.

When I was at NASA, I had a house on a small private airstrip that we shared between the flying community. I had a hangar in my backyard with my airplane in it so I could just fly from my home.

I got my undergraduate degree in chemical engineering.

I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.

There were different challenges along the way. Certainly the food shortage was unpleasant.

I think there's all kinds of life out there, including intelligent life, but the reason we haven't found each other is because of vast distances.

As astronauts know better than anyone else, risks, incidents, and mishaps are inevitable in the development of any high-performance vehicle. The emergence of supersonic flight during the 1940s and of the Century Series of fighters in the 1950s came with the loss of several test pilots. Still, it was a glorious time.

I was a graduate student in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan called for the construction of a new space station. I knew then that I wanted to apply for the astronaut program, and this was an exciting development.

Studying engineering was natural for me; I was always interested in technology and building things.