Quotes from Shannon Walker

Houston's a very big town. It's changed a lot over my lifetime, it's quite a bit bigger now than it was when I was growing up, but it's a fantastic city. I know a lot of people perhaps don't give it the credit it's due but it's a wonderful city that's got absolutely fantastic restaurants.

Flying gives me a tremendous sense of freedom and I hope that anyone who wishes to learn has the opportunity to do so.

When I was in high school we had the first shuttle launch, and it reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the space program. I was in awe of the space shuttle as such a tremendous machine taking people into space. It seemed like such a wonderful thing that I wanted to be a part of.

I would love to fly to the Moon or Mars.

I'm one who likes to eat regularly, so not being able to eat for eight hours makes me a little cranky.

One thing in space, just like home: you cannot escape housework. Every Saturday is clean-the-station day.

Sometimes you can have too much information. You keep gathering information and never bother to find out what the real answer is.

When I was growing up, I used to have dreams of going to fly. Being in space reminds me of that.

During and after college, I did a lot of biking and bike touring.

When your flying in a jet aircraft, everything goes much faster.

Why did I want to be an astronaut? That's not an easy question to answer because I know a lot of kids want to be astronauts when they grow up but it stuck with me and I think just maybe growing up in Houston and always having the astronauts and the Johnson Space Center in my backyard, I was always aware of the space program.

At a young age, I became interested in space and science after watching the U.S. land on the moon for the first time.

I enjoy traveling and seeing new places - especially places where I can go hiking.

My sleeping bag is affixed to a wall and I climb inside and sort of float around in the sleeping bag at night while I'm sleeping.

The Soyuz is probably only slightly smaller than the Dragon.

I liked learning things. I liked solving problems and doing my homework. I realize a lot of kids don't like that, but I always enjoyed going to school.

The reason that we don't have happy hours up here is because you never know when something might actually go sideways, and so we always have to be prepared in a worst, worst case scenario to jump on our spacecraft and go home. So, we have to keep it pretty straight and narrow while we're up here.

I studied physics as an undergraduate, and after I graduated from Rice University, I was actually hired at the Johnson Space Center as a flight controller.

It's unfortunate, but I know it's the right thing to do to end the shuttle program. If we want to do other things, we need a different spacecraft.

Well, eating is very similar to eating on Earth. Of course, there is no gravity, so your food does float around. So you have to be a little bit more careful that it doesn't go flying off your fork or spoon.

We have stars, planets and galaxies in space. There's lots of nothingness out there, but it's really not. There's gas, dust and other bits of matter floating around emptier' areas of the universe, but you can't see it very easily.

I'm so proud to represent my hometown on the International Space Station where we conduct scientific research that can benefit all of humankind.

When I became an astronaut, I knew I wanted to pursue long-duration flight aboard the station. I knew it would be a just a tremendous personal challenge, and I looked forward to it.

I can talk about casting a ballot from space since I did it last time I was on the space station. They basically send you an electronic file, it's a PDF, and you mark your choices.