Zitat des Tages von Mark Kelly:
It's important to bring things back from the Space Station because, unlike somebody living at the house where the garbage truck comes by twice a week, they don't have that in space.
I personally believe this Agency has always been very dedicated and has always worked as hard as it possibly can to do things as safely and as effectively as possible.
There's a lot of interest there in the missions that I fly on and the ones my brother's involved with.
Later, after flying in the Navy for four or five years, spending some time on an aircraft carrier, I applied to and was accepted in a program where I went to graduate school first and then to the Naval Test Pilots School.
A trip to space is a big motivator to give up some things in your personal life. Obviously, you can't give up everything and you don't want to.
He's working a lot harder than I am. I tell these people that we really appreciate what they're doing for us.
My family deals with those risks. The best I can do is talk to them about some of those risks. I'm not incredibly specific with them, especially with my kids.
Well, I have an undergraduate degree, a couple of bachelor's degrees, from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
Three of us will help the other two get suited up, get them in the hatch, and get them out the door.
We're doing a lot of inspection on the leading edge of our wing on 114 and 121, the first two flights.
The first two missions have some test objectives, some new capabilities that we're going to try to develop on orbit to possibly be used on later flights.
You look at it as a privilege. So you really decide that you're going to put the time in and work really hard to get to the point where you're ready.
I'll be helping them getting suited up, getting them in the airlock, getting the airlock prepared, and getting them out the hatch, and then talking them through these three spacewalks.
Having the benefit to our society, not only here in the United States but throughout the world with the amount of invention you get from having a space program, is well worth the risk that an individual like myself has to take by flying in the vehicle.
After the loss of Columbia a couple of years ago, I think we were reminded of the risk. All of us, though, have always known that the Space Shuttle is a very risky vehicle, much more risky than even flying airplanes in combat.
I think I was very interested in the space program as a kid, watching the first Apollo missions to the moon, and it's something I thought that would be a lot of, of fun and exciting and a very worthwhile job.
