Rakesh Sharma Quotes

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.

I'm a fully trained cosmonaut and have completed 800 hours training, which has made me the No. 1 civilian reserve ready to visit the International Space Station. I am determined to go up, and I want to explore the Moon, Mars and beyond!

I'd love to go back to space, I don't know any astronaut who doesn't want to.

I had pretty much done it all before I went into space. So when the opportunity came, I went along. It was that simple.

Going to Mars is a bunch of baby steps, and it started off with the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin.

Having the opportunity to fly the first flight of something like a space shuttle was the ultimate test flight.

I was only a hero by default. The flights were few and far between. There weren't that many astronauts. The moon flights were so interesting and exciting.

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

He who commands an Apollo flight will not command a second one.

So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.

I told them how excited I would be to go into space and how thrilled I was when Alan Shepard made his historic flight, and when John Kennedy announced on the news that the men had landed safely on the moon, and how jealous I was of those men.

NASA was going to pick a public school teacher to go into space, observe and make a journal about the space flight, and I am a teacher who always dreamed of going up into space.

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.

I wanted to get superimposed on a shuttle launch.

Walking in space is absolutely the most exhilarating part of a mission. The view is just incredible.

Flying in space is a privilege, whether it's the first time or the fourth time.

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.

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.

Doing a space walk. It is one of the most rare human experiences. To leave your spaceship and go outside, so that you are alone in the universe with Earth distant and the universe around you. That is amazing.

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

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I grew up in Houston. Gordo Cooper was my favorite astronaut.

I think I was very interested in the space program as a kid, watching the first Apollo missions to the moon, and it's something I thought that would be a lot of, of fun and exciting and a very worthwhile job.

The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you've ever seen a space IMAX movie, that's really what it looks like. I wish I'd had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map, but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time.

I've put a lot of my life into making it possible to fly in space at all.