The Astronauts Who Came In

On A Standard Space Shuttle Crew, Two Of The Astronauts Have A Test Pilot Background - The Commander And The Pilot.

I Liked Math - That Was My Favorite Subject - And I Was Very Interested In Astronomy And In Physical Science.

The View Of Earth Is Spectacular From Space. Most People Imagine That When Astronauts Look Out The Window Of The Shuttle They See The Whole Earth Like That Big Blue Marble That Was Made Famous By The Flights That Went To The Moon. But The Shuttle Is Much, Much Closer Than Those Astronauts Were. So We Don't See The Whole Planet, The Whole Ball At Once, We Just See Parts Of It.

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 Never Went Into Physics Or The Astronaut Corps To Become A Role Model. But After My First Flight, It Became Clear To Me That I Was One. And I Began To Understand The Importance Of That To People. Young Girls Need To See Role Models In Whatever Careers They May Choose, Just So They Can Picture Themselves Doing Those Jobs Someday. You Can't Be What You Can't See.