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“The space station mission was kind of the culmination of all of my experience of being a NASA Astronaut, so it had brought all of my previous experience into play. I had to learn the Russian language to a fluent level so that I could function as the co-pilot of the Soyuz Spacecraft that we flew up and back from the space station. And then the challenge of being the Commander of the whole expedition, a six and a-half month flight aboard the international space station. I felt the burden of the whole mission on my shoulders, which was fine, and fortunately everything did go well.”

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“As far as Russia goes, they've been our partner for a long time now, since the early '90's. So you know, what's that, that's more than 15 years. And there have been times where things were a little tense, a little testy, but by and large, the partnership has been very successful. To give you two examples of that, when the Columbia accident occurred, the Russians supported us with their spacecraft faring our astronauts, including me, to the space station and also supplies.”

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“Cooperating in something as visible as space exploration and space flight can only improve relations between the two countries because what happens is, you're working on a common project in a very visible light and so, you're motivated to not have conflicts with each other in other areas. And bringing up China is a good example. In the early '90's, China got serious about wanting to launch astronauts into space and they were actually quite successful in launching many communication satellites. They went ahead and in 2003 they launched their first astronaut into space.”

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“In 2006, I became the fist American to be allowed to go visit their astronaut center in China in Beijing. I think that it makes sense for the U.S. to work with China in the future and I hope to see, if the political atmosphere between the United States and China allow for us to do more cooperation together, especially in the area of human space flight. I think in the same way that it's help improve the relations between the U.S. and Russia; it would help to improve the relations between the U.S. and China.”

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“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.”

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“The Americans are still the leaders in human space flight. I feel we have a danger here of kind of stagnating. We're kind of resting on our laurels and there's a danger going forward if we don't take bold steps to really support human space flight in this country that we could fall behind. After the space shuttle is retired, we're going to have a big gap, five to seven years, at least where we're not going to have the ability to send our own astronauts into space, we'll have to buy rides on the Russian Soyuz, and so that will be a pretty big step down for us.”

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“In a big picture sense, it's more national prestige that we're risking. You know, we are proud of our space program, but as we were talking earlier, the average American doesn't think that much about it right now. So, it may seem like something we could just give up and not really worry about it, but I think it starts creeping into the national psyche. If American astronauts have to hitch rides with the Russians or other nations in the future.”

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“Where we're operating is orbital adventures. We would offer five to seven days in low Earth orbit aboard our own spacecraft where customers would have the view of the Earth; get to experience really living in space, probably conducting some scientific investigations that we would piggyback onto those flights. So, they would have the whole experience, kind of a mini-experience of what professional astronauts have.”

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“The United States, Russia, and China are the only three countries in the world that can launch astronauts into space. Mostly in the U.S. you see some companies trying to launch private commercial people into space, but nobody's done it yet. The only private vehicle that's made it into space so far is Spaceship 1 in 2004, and that was an effort that was funded by one of the Microsoft founders, and he spent about $20 million to develop this spacecraft to do a sub-orbital flight. And it's not the same as going into orbit, but it was a huge first step.”

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“The most important thing about an astronaut is you have to take for a given a person's done pretty well in school, has the intelligence and all of that to learn new systems and new things. But after that, the most important thing I think is being able to get along with others. Flexibility and teamwork, those issues because as we fly longer and longer in space, those are really important factors, even on short shuttle missions, those are important factors, to put a crew together that can work together effectively as a team, that can get along.”

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“What keeps me up at night? Probably most, thinking about the future for my kids. It sounds kind of funny, but not so much what they're going to do, but how as a parent, how my wife and I as parents, how best we should prepare them for the world. And I know everybody does this, I think everybody stays up at night thinking about the best thing for their kids, and astronauts are no different.”

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“My advice for an aspiring astronaut is to really follow your passion. I mean, study something that interests you, but also qualifies you to apply. NASA recruits from a wide variety of backgrounds. I know people who have applied to be an astronaut who ask me, well should I do this or should I do that. And I said, you know, it doesn't matter. The basic requirements are you have to be in good health, and you have to have a good heart, I mean in a technical way, not to be a kind person, well that helps. Study something that you like and do well in it.”

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