The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.
Sally Ride
On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.
Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.
I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.
The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.
I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.
Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.
No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.
It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.
The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.