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.
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All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
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Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.
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But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.
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But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.
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Different astronauts sleep in different ways.
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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.
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For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds.
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I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.
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I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.
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I don't have any nicknames.
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I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job.
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I had both male and female heroes.
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I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.
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I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.
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I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.
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It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.
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It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.
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It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!
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My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.
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