I Wasn’t Destined To Be An Astronaut.

Scientific Literacy Is One Of The Underpinnings Of Everything I Do. It's Why I Work With Schools. It's Why I Teach At University. I Do A Lot Of Outreach To Try And Improve General Scientific Literacy, But The Core Of All Scientific Literacy Is Just Literacy.

There Is A Sunrise Or A Sunset From Space Every 92 Minutes So There Is An Incredible Amount Of Beauty To See From Up There.

Still, I Also Know That Most People, Including Me, Tend To Applaud The Wrong Things: The Showy, Dramatic Record-setting Sprint Rather Than The Years Of Dogged Preparation Or The Unwavering Grace Displayed During A String Of Losses. Applause, Then, Never Bore Much Relation To The Reality Of My Life As An Astronaut, Which Was Not All About, Or Even Mostly About, Flying Around In Space.

We Are Not Machines Exploring The Universe, We Are People.

There Is No Problem So Bad That You Cannot Make It Worse