What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background, but motivation, perseverance, and desire - the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery.
I think there would be no shortage of applicants to the government astronaut corps to be settlers on the planet Mars. And I think this would be very inspiring.
I worked for some very good people who have helped me along the way and actually enabled me to have the opportunity to be selected to join the Astronaut Corps.
Army astronauts have a very proud legacy in the astronaut program.
I really feel like, on my first mission, the first mission is when you prove yourself and hopefully deserve the privilege to continue as an astronaut and remain in the corps and get granted an opportunity for a second mission.
What I was most curious about was why Armstrong, a top U.S. Navy test pilot, flying the most advanced aircraft in the world, would want to join the astronaut corps in 1962, which included chimpanzees and monkeys.
I was a graduate student in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan called for the construction of a new space station. I knew then that I wanted to apply for the astronaut program, and this was an exciting development.
I believe that there will be women astronauts sometime just as there are women airplane pilots.
The astronaut corps is a very small part of a very large team that enables human spaceflight.
