What guy didn't want to be an astronaut growing up?
Most of us at least briefly considered answering, 'An astronaut,' when asked as children what we wanted to be when we grew up.
By the time I finished high school, I knew I wanted to become an astronomer. By the time I finished college, I knew I wanted to be part of the American space program. And that's exactly what I did.
When I was a little girl, I thought when I had an opportunity to go into space, I thought I would at a minimum be working on Mars or another large planet because we were doing all of these incredible things.
I am a spacer. It is what and who I am. It is my cause and my life. I am not an enthusiast, a fan, or supporter. It is what I exist to do here on Earth. And there are many of us; some, like Elon Musk, are very high profile.
I first told my parents that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was 3 years old.
The opportunities to become an astronaut in Canada were far and few.
I can't think of anything specific growing up that pointed me toward NASA at all. I was interested in the Moon landings just about the same as everyone else of my generation. But I never really thought about being an astronaut or working in space myself.
Ever since I saw the moon landing as a young teenager, I was determined I would go into space one day.
When I went to Test Pilot School, that's when we came to Johnson Space Center. And I ended up seeing John Young and listening to him talk and getting a positive influence from him.
It took me a long time to get selected as an astronaut. In fact, I applied for 20 years before I was selected.
I saw this movie 'The Right Stuff' when I was in college, and it really rekindled my interest in being an astronaut. I started taking those steps, and then I realized it would be the chance of a lifetime. It would be a dream life: not just a job, but the whole life.
I went to school at night in L.A. to brush up on my engineering while I applied to the astronaut program. I really did not know if I would get in. It was the year after the Challenger accident in 1987.
I progressed through my schooling, undergraduate and graduate degrees, excited about math and science and engineering, but really didn't think about being an astronaut at that point. It was kind of unreachable.
I’m not a risk taker. But astronauts are professionals, so you get out on the field and play ball. I tried to take it in stride because that’s what I had to do to get into space. That’s where I belong, and I’m pretty good at it.
To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.
When I became an astronaut, I was an engineer.
Although as a boy I had dreamed about going into space, I had completely forgotten about that until one day I received a call from an astronaut, who suggested that I should join the program.
I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and I can't recall ever not wanting to be an astronaut.
I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.
When I got to college, I discovered how many incredible opportunities NASA offered students pursuing a career in the space industry.
I think the astronaut job is the best job in the world. I realized when I was older and started applying for it that it's a pretty cool job.
Spoiler alert: I did not become an astronaut.
I didn't really realize that writing... would be fun and people would pay you to do it. Being an astronaut is a glory profession, and so is writing, in a way.
I think I set myself on a course to become a scientist around about the time that Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos' series was on television, and there really was no going back for me at that point, and then I went on to study space science and then get my Ph.D., then go aboard and work in the European Space Agency.
