We Also Knew It Would

Of Course I Was Delighted The Flight Was Over, But I Still Had To Worry About Cleaning Up Inside The Cabin, I Had To Worry About The Hatch, How To Get In The Sling, And So On.

I Realized Up There That Our Planet Is Not Infinite. It's Fragile. That May Not Be Obvious To A Lot Of Folks, And It's Tough That People Are Fighting Each Other Here On Earth Instead Of Trying To Get Together And Live On This Planet. We Look Pretty Vulnerable In The Darkness Of Space.

Then There Was The Challenge To Keep Doing Better And Better, To Fly The Best Test Flight That Anybody Had Ever Flown. That Led To My Being Recognized As One Of The More Experienced Test Pilots, And That Led To The Astronaut Business.

And I Think That Still Is True Of This Business - Which Is Basically Research And Development - That You Probably Spend More Time In Planning And Training And Designing For Things To Go Wrong, And How You Cope With Them, Than You Do For Things To Go Right.

I Think The Sense Of Family And Family Achievement, Plus The Discipline Which I Received There From That One-room School Were Really Very Helpful In What I Did Later On.