If We Want Scientists And Engineers In

My Background Is In Physics, So I Was The Mission Specialist, Who Is Sort Of Like The Flight Engineer On An Airplane.

It Was Hard To Become An Astronaut. Not Anywhere Near As Much Physical Training As People Imagine, But A Lot Of Mental Training, A Lot Of Learning. You Have To Learn Everything There Is To Know About The Space Shuttle And Everything You Are Going To Be Doing, And Everything You Need To Know If Something Goes Wrong, And Then Once You Have Learned It All, You Have To Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice Until Everything Is Second Nature, So It's A Very, Very Difficult Training, And It Takes Years.

Some Astronauts Sleep In Sort Of Beds - Compartments That You Can Open Up And Crawl Into And Then Close Up, Almost Like A Little Bedroom.

On Both Of My Flights, Everything Went Very Well.

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.