A Quote by David M. Brown

I remember growing up thinking that astronauts and their job was the coolest thing you could possibly do... But I absolutely couldn't identify with the people who were astronauts. I thought they were movie stars.
Since we were kids, we grow up believing that astronauts are heroes - that to go up in a rocket is a heroic thing. These guys are bigger than movie stars. To me, it's... all a well-dressed-up lie, basically. There's billions spent on rockets up there, and there's millions starving down here. It don't make sense to me.
It was a real honor for me to get to be the first woman astronaut. I think it's really important that young girls that are growing up today can see that women can be astronauts too. There have actually been a lot of women, who are astronauts, that that's a career that's open to them.
Why did I want to be an astronaut? That's not an easy question to answer because I know a lot of kids want to be astronauts when they grow up but it stuck with me and I think just maybe growing up in Houston and always having the astronauts and the Johnson Space Center in my backyard, I was always aware of the space program.
I attended a big human space flight conference in Beijing and I was going as myself. And really, there weren't any NASA astronauts there, I was the only so-called American Astronaut there. We had astronauts from most of the other countries, certainly from Russia, from France, from Japan, several other countries, but it was a little bit odd because here we are at an international gathering of a lot of astronauts and I'm talking about somewhere upwards of 30 or so astronauts, and I'm the only American. And I wasn't even there in an official capacity.
I'm 9, 10, and I'm watching the Apollo astronauts go to the moon. We're sitting on the floor of a school, and they have this... huge TV, and I'm looking at that, and I'm thinking 'Me, I would like to do that.' But it didn't dawn on me then that they were American; I was Canadian. They were men; I was a girl. They were test pilots, military folks.
I've been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through.
So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.
I think that over the years, whether they want to admit it or not, people have to admit that the women astronauts have performed just as well as the men astronauts.
When I was growing up, there were very few women athletes. I remember watching Olga Corbett, but Peggy Fleming and Janet Lynn were my role models. I never dreamt that I could be at that level. I remember thinking they seemed so elegant and regal and powerful and feminine.
I think professional cosmonaut trainer in fact said that we are the only two [with Damian Kulash ] he found fit to be astronauts, which is ridiculous because we are far from fit from being astronauts. So you can imagine what was going on up there.
The view of earth is spectacular from space. Most people imagine that when astronauts look out the window of the shuttle they see the whole earth like that big blue marble that was made famous by the flights that went to the moon. But the shuttle is much, much closer than those astronauts were. So we don't see the whole planet, the whole ball at once, we just see parts of it.
I grew up in a very small town, but it happened to be in western Massachusetts, where there were a lot of gay people. I remember my aunt going to a gay wedding when I was 11, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone, there was a constant surveillance by UFOs.
I remember when I was 12, talking with my friends about what we wanted to do with our lives, astronauts, forensic detectives, all these different jobs. And the only thing I could think was an actor.
Astronauts were not the impulsive daredevils so dear to the stereopticonloving public. They couldn't afford to be. The hazards of the profession required an infinite capacity for cautious, contemplative thought.
I'm sure we would not have had men on the Moon if it had not been for Wells and Verne and the people who write about this and made people think about it. I'm rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books.
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