Anne McClain Quotes

We were only on orbit a little over two days, so we had no adverse effects from being weightless.

After floating for nine and a half months in space, gravity is not your friend.

Now, I've never flown in space; but the folks who have say that on landing day, you know, you've just spent maybe a week and a half, sometimes two weeks in orbit and you're used to the things happening slowly in space.

I've flown in space four times now, so it's going to be hard in that respect, but I certainly look forward to going back to Earth. I've been up here for a really long time and sometimes, when I think about it, I feel like I've lived my whole life up here.

Remember, I am not trying to orbit the earth. It is a simple elevator ride for 20 minutes.

Life as an astronaut in space is a very interesting one. There are things we all take for granted here on earth, like gravity, that can make things a bit challenging. One of the fun things about getting here is the zero gravity and floating around. But it also makes things very difficult.

When the space shuttle's engines cut off, and you're finally in space, in orbit, weightless... I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that's when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.

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.

They forbade me from flying, despite all my protests and arguments. After being once in space, I was desperately keen to go back there. But it didn't happen.

Tiangong 1, our home in space, was comfortable and pleasant.

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

The microgravity or the very, very low amount of gravity that we have up in space forces some changes in different processes. It forces changes in us as human beings.

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.

Living inside the shuttle was a little like camping out. We ended up sleeping in our seats. You had to pay attention to housekeeping, not get things too dirty.

A zero-gravity flight is a first step toward space travel.

I'm not going into infinity. I'm going into low earth orbit.

I think if I had to choose, I would rather have gravity instead of zero gravity. It's fun for a while, but I'd rather live on Earth.

The reason space missions need artificial gravity is clear: humans simply did not evolve to live in zero gravity.

That's really why I want to go to space - I want to be weightless for so long that it gets boring.

On Earth, I weighed 150 pounds; my suit and backpack weighed another 150. 300 pounds. Up there, I weighed only 50. So I could prance around on my toes. It was quite easy to do.

The first 6 hours of being in orbit were a little difficult on my stomach. I think things just didn't know where to go!

It seems like in the beginning of my flight, the space dreams were rare. And now, almost 150 days into it, the Earth dreams are more of the rare ones.

The most uncomfortable thing about going to space is coming home. It's a little strange to get used to gravity again.

The ride to orbit was impressive, as it always is. But once I got on board the space station, it really felt like I was visiting an old home; it felt very comfortable.

The one thing we can't really train for is weightlessness, real weightlessness. It's a ton of fun. It's pure Newtonian physics. You push in one direction, you go in the opposite direction with an equal force.