Sally Ride Quotes

But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.

Different astronauts sleep in different ways.

But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.

Even though NASA tries to simulate launch, and we practice in simulators, it's not the same - it's not even close to the same.

For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds.

It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!

My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.

NASA has to approve whatever we wear, so there are clothes to choose from, like space shorts - we wear those a lot - and NASA T-shirts.

No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.

On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.

On both of my flights, everything went very well.

Once you are assigned to a flight, the whole crew is assigned at the same time, and then that crew trains together for a whole year to prepare for that flight.

So I decided on science when I was in college.

So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.

So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.

Some astronauts sleep in sort of beds - compartments that you can open up and crawl into and then close up, almost like a little bedroom.

The astronauts who came in with me in my astronaut class - my class had 29 men and 6 women - those men were all very used to working with women.

I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.

I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.

I don't have any nicknames.

I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job.

I had both male and female heroes.

I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.

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

I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.