Julie Payette Quotes

Basically, most good science in space flight has to do with the behavior of the human body in space. That is where we are lacking info, and where info can only be obtained by flying in space.

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.

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.

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

Up in space we don't have a huge wardrobe.

One thing we've learned about space is that the human body starts to fall apart after relatively short exposures to microgravity.

Zero G and I feel fine.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

We want people to continue learning new things about what space does to the human body. It's important for us to understand that and make sure when we get ready to fly to Mars that we are ready for what we're going to be exposed to.

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.

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

On Earth, men are seen as superior because of their physical strength, but it means nothing in space, where there is no gravity.

As we all know, there is no underwear in space.

To be able to float and move around and, pretty much effortlessly, do whatever you want with your body in space is pretty amazing.

One of the coolest things to me about living in space was it really caused me to think about how the human body and mind can adapt to completely different environments.

People do really well on space missions, but it's the physiological, the medical stuff, the stuff like radiation, loss of bone mass and muscle mass and density. It's those things that we need to figure out.

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

Space flight's good for age; I have a lot less wrinkles up here. It's a good place to be as you get older.

We try to keep it a normal day while we're up in space. You know, you don't want to change your time cycle too much, so we just keep it normal. And so, about 5 or 6 o'clock at night, after we finish working, we knock it off by having prerecorded shows that we watch sometimes through the computer while we're eating dinner.

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.