Quotes About Astronaut

As she lies in the bed she weeps, for Bing, for the melting, shimmering candles, the filigree on the holiday tablecloth. She is an unwilling astronaut, bumping against the thick glass of the ship, her line tangling lazily in zero gravity, face mask fogged with fear. My sister reaches across, over the bed, and we both embrace the mother, holding her on earth, pulling her onto the ship, breathing our oxygen into her line. Ten hours later she is dead.

I was selected to be an astronaut on a military program called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory back in '67. That program got cancelled in '69 and NASA ended up taking half of us.

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've always hankered after going into space and walking on the moon and Mars. I did want to be an astronaut, and had there been a manned space flight programme in the U.K., I would have been knocking on the door.

You can get claustrophobia and agoraphobia - a fear of wide, open spaces - simultaneously on a spacewalk.

During my time in orbit, I lost bone mass, my muscles atrophied, and my blood redistributed itself in my body, which strained my heart. Every day, I was exposed to ten times the radiation of a person on Earth, which will increase my risk of a fatal cancer for the rest of my life.

Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business.

We have never lost a crew member on the space station, but of course, the Columbia accident. I was - I'd already been an astronaut for a decade when the crew of Columbia was killed. And I went through test pilot school. Rick Husband and I were out at Edwards at test pilot school together. He was the commander of Columbia.

I flew fighters for the Navy in San Diego for three years, went and did my post-graduate education, and then I was a test pilot in Patuxent River, Maryland, for a few years. I was back in the fleet in the Navy when I was selected to come back here to NASA to become an astronaut.

I loved being a test pilot, and so being an astronaut was - was not my end point in, you know, either I achieved success by being an astronaut, or if I don't get picked, I'm not successful. I loved my career as a pilot, and it was a bonus to be selected as an astronaut.

What I was most curious about was why Armstrong, a top U.S. Navy test pilot, flying the most advanced aircraft in the world, would want to join the astronaut corps in 1962, which included chimpanzees and monkeys.

The whole Hubble program has just been a fabulous testament to the NASA science community and the NASA astronaut community.

I was a naval officer and aviator. I tested airplanes and got selected to be an astronaut later on.

Any astronaut can tell you you've got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it.

Neil Armstrong was probably one of the most human guys I've ever known in my life.

In space no one can hear you scream.

Of course, you'll have to meet the physical and psychological demands. A space walk takes a lot of energy.

I would certainly encourage young people to pursue their dreams. It isn't always an easy path, but it's worth going after. And I figure if a farmer's daughter from Iowa can become an astronaut, you can be just about anything you want to be.

Houston is where I grew up and luckily I didn't have to go far to pursue my dream of becoming an astronaut.

And then my chance really happened in 1996 when we added the second flight of the tether satellite.

And the first flight of the tether satellite happened in '92, and I was the backup on that flight.

Most of my family and friends are very familiar with the human space flight program and with the excitement of becoming an astronaut.

I like to see the flag up flying proudly. When I'm in space I represent that flag.

What is true and what most folks think is that there is no sound in space. From almost all recollections, I would agree.