Duane G. Carey Quotes

Well, for me it really wasn't a case of deciding to be an astronaut.

By my mid-30s, I just thought, 'This is not going to happen. I am never going to become an astronaut in the U.K.'

Two months after I got out of test pilot school, I saw an advert that said NASA was recruiting more astronauts. The best job you could have as a test pilot was being an astronaut, so I volunteered.

I saw this movie 'The Right Stuff' when I was in college, and it really rekindled my interest in being an astronaut. I started taking those steps, and then I realized it would be the chance of a lifetime. It would be a dream life: not just a job, but the whole life.

I didn't go into the NASA program to pick up rocks or to go the moon or anything else. I went in there because I was a military officer, and that was the next notch in my profession.

Then, much later, my next dream was to become an astronaut, and I was fortunate to realize that dream, also.

I don't think you ever really decide that you want to be an astronaut. I put in an application and hoped for the best.

Becoming an astronaut was a little bit of happenstance for me.

I first told my parents that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was 3 years old.

If my vision was good enough, I'd be an astronaut.

NASA has never had a problem finding capable people to be astronauts. NASA's problem was, and still is, finding ways to cut the list of capable applicants down to a manageable length.

Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience - ideally, a test pilot background.

I did want to be a pilot. I wanted to be a military pilot because I liked airplanes. I was interested in modeling airplanes.

Is there any other job that beats being an astronaut? Who didn't want to be an astronaut? That is my question.

Not until the space shuttle started flying did NASA concede that some astronauts didn't have to be fast-jet pilots. And at that point, sure enough, women started becoming astronauts.

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.

All astronauts, even civilians like me without pilot experience, have to learn how to co-pilot a jet called a T-38.

Most astronauts are very down-to-earth people. Many of us, three-quarters, have an engineering degree, and we have a very Cartesian, rational approach to things.

What guy didn't want to be an astronaut growing up?

From day one, I have been told I am no different from the male astronauts. As a pilot, I flew in the sky. Now that I am an astronaut, I will fly in space.

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.

Nothing focuses your mind quite like flying a jet. That's one reason NASA requires that astronauts fly T-38s: it forces us to concentrate and prioritize in some of the same ways we need to in a rocket ship.

I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the Moon, but flying in a completely new medium.

Fortunately, I got called down to NASA for an interview. And one thing led to the next, and one day I got that call. I've been here about seven years now and am really enjoying it.

I actually wanted to be an astronaut, but I don't have a mathematical brain.