The experience of being in space didn’t change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.

I’ve discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there’s no need to explain it to them. The other half can’t understand and I couldn’t explain it to them. If someone doesn’t know why, I can’t explain it.

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

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!

It’s too bad our society isn’t further along.

It was a real honor for me to get to be the first woman astronaut. I think it’s really important that young girls that are growing up today can see that women can be astronauts too. There have actually been a lot of women, who are astronauts, that that’s a career that’s open to them.

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

Studying whether there’s life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there’s something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That’s something that is almost part of being human, and I’m certain that will continue.

When you can feel that close to something you’re used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person.