Michael P. Anderson Quotes

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

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

So, whenever Scooter was the Pilot, he never had a chance to fly the orbiter. So, the joke is: I'm going to have a chance to fly it first and hand it over to him.

When you see the orbiter headed out the launch pad and then crawling up the hill and being hard down on the pad, it does something to you.

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.

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.

There was a lot of light and a lot of rumbling and vibration, especially the first minute or minute-and-a-half. And then after about two minutes, when the solid rocket boosters separated, the ride got a lot smoother.

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

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 thought I was prepared for space, and it still absolutely defied every expectation and dream. It is an incredible thing to put yourself on a rocket and launch off the planet. It is an amazing thing to see the planet from space. This blue sphere is almost indescribably beautiful.

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

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

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.

I've been lucky enough to fly to space twice.

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.

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.

As an astronaut, especially during launch, half of the risk of a six-month flight is in the first nine minutes.

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

Looking down at the Earth, you started to pick up a sense of speed much more than I had noticed on orbit.

Build a rocket ship and leave the earth!

I could have gone on flying through space forever.

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.

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

I wanted to get superimposed on a shuttle launch.