Duane G. Carey Quotes

I was a flight engineer on my second flight, which is the most senior position a non-American can have aboard the shuttle. We're the cockpit crew. We fly the vehicle up to space, dock the vehicle to the space station, undock it at the end of the mission, and return it to the ground.

Once you get into the spacecraft, you're on your way, you've got a mission, you're focused, and it's really exciting.

My first mission was six and a half months. We weren't exactly sure how long it was going to be because I went up and back on the space shuttle, which was dependent on weather for launch and landing.

After being once in space, I was keen to go back there. But it didn't happen.

The space shuttle has been a fantastic vehicle. It is unlike any other thing that we've ever built. Its capabilities have carried several hundred people into space.

Every shuttle mission's been successful.

For the last several years and culminating in six months in orbit next year, I've been training for my third space flight. This one is almost in a category completely different than the previous two, specifically to live in on the space station for six months, to command a space ship and to fly a new rocket ship.

I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.

I still dream about being on the space station with the feeling of being weightless. The weightlessness is the most amazing, relaxing and natural feeling.

The first time I went into space was just so much more than you could imagine or prepare yourself for.

I would always consider flying in space again, without a question.

I would much rather fly on Soyuz than the shuttle.

As someone who flew two space capsules and twice landed in the ocean, I can attest from personal experience how much logistics work is needed to get you home.

In 2009 I went up on the space shuttle. I was in space for 16 days and docked at the space station for 11 days. The entire crew did five space walks, of which I was involved with three of them. When you're doing a space walk, you always have a buddy with you. It's a very dangerous environment when you're doing a space walk.

A journey into space is the greatest adventure I can imagine.

Spaceflight, especially in the Mercury spacecraft, clearly wasn't going to be much like flying an airplane.

When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.

The excitement really didn't start to build until the trailer - which was carrying me, with a space suit with ventilation and all that sort of stuff - pulled up to the launch pad.

Rendezvous day is the third day of our mission, and that's a big day for us.

My job during the EVAs, the spacewalks, is to act as the inside coordinator. I remain on the aft flight deck of the shuttle, and I act in a manner to help the gentlemen outside, my fellow crewmates, who are performing the EVA tasks.

I operated a periscopic TV camera so the commander, Anatoly Artsebarsky, could establish where we were heading. It is real teamwork on Soyuz.

I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.

People are genuinely interested about what it's like to experience spaceflight and try to get some of our perspectives on it.

You know, west Texas is already beautiful to view from the ground. I can't even imagine what it must look like as you're floating down to Earth in a capsule making its return trip from outer space.

A lot of people, I think, would love to see the earth from above, wear a spacesuit. Certainly, when I was a kid, I wanted to wear a spacesuit.