Anne McClain Quotes

When you talk to crews that went to Mir or have gone up to International Space Station, they say that you go through different phases of adaptation or getting used to the space environment.

This has been a great experience for me. The first couple of days you don't always feel too well. You adjust to the fluid shifting, how to fly through space without hitting things or anybody else. But then you get in a groove.

Adjusting to space is easier than adjusting to Earth for me.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

When we first get to space, we feel sick. Your body is really confused. You're dizzy. Your lunch is floating around in your belly because you're floating. What you see doesn't match what you feel, and you want to throw up.

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.

Adaption of the human body in space is not yet mastered. As soon as you hit space, you feel your body is going through a period of mutation. There's no blood in your head; you have a hard time swallowing. We're not born to naturally be in space.

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.

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.

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.

In space, if you push, you are usually going somewhere, so staying on the treadmill was a challenge at first, even with the harness.

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!

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.

Now, space has its own unique smell. So whenever a vehicle docks, or if guys are out doing a spacewalk, the smell of space when you open up the hatch is very distinct. It's kind of like a burning-metal smell, if you can imagine what that would smell like.

Gravity is a really heavy force and you don't realize how heavy it is until you haven't felt it for six and a half months.

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

Zero G and I feel fine.

Everyone who's been in space would, I'm sure, welcome the opportunity for a return to the exhilarating experiences there.

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