When You're Getting Ready To

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.

The Most Anxious Time Was During Launch, Just Because That Is So Dramatic.

The Fact That I Was Going To Be The First American Woman To Go Into Space Carried Huge Expectations Along With It.

So I Saw Many Planets, And They Looked Just A Little Bit Brighter Than They Do From Earth.

Anything From Making A Mistake On An Experiment That Would Ruin Some Scientist On Earth's Experiment - Career, Potentially - To Doing Something Wrong With The Satellite That A Country Was Depending On For Its Communications, To Making Some Mistake That Could Actually Cost You And The Crew Either A Mission Or Your Lives. So There Is A Lot Of Pressure That's Put On Every Astronaut To Just Make Sure That He Or She Understands Exactly What To Do, Exactly When To Do It, And Is Trained And Prepared To Carry It Out.