Well, I have an undergraduate degree, a couple of bachelor's degrees, from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

I'll be helping them getting suited up, getting them in the airlock, getting the airlock prepared, and getting them out the hatch, and then talking them through these three spacewalks.

You look at it as a privilege. So you really decide that you're going to put the time in and work really hard to get to the point where you're ready.

I personally believe this Agency has always been very dedicated and has always worked as hard as it possibly can to do things as safely and as effectively as possible.

We're doing a lot of inspection on the leading edge of our wing on 114 and 121, the first two flights.

Well, right now we're so busy that I kind of had to put all the hobbies on hold. But I like going camping with my kids. I have two daughters; they're 7 and 10 years old.

I think I was very interested in the space program as a kid, watching the first Apollo missions to the moon, and it's something I thought that would be a lot of, of fun and exciting and a very worthwhile job.

A trip to space is a big motivator to give up some things in your personal life. Obviously, you can't give up everything and you don't want to.

Having the benefit to our society, not only here in the United States but throughout the world with the amount of invention you get from having a space program, is well worth the risk that an individual like myself has to take by flying in the vehicle.

After the loss of Columbia a couple of years ago, I think we were reminded of the risk. All of us, though, have always known that the Space Shuttle is a very risky vehicle, much more risky than even flying airplanes in combat.

The first two missions have some test objectives, some new capabilities that we're going to try to develop on orbit to possibly be used on later flights.

My family deals with those risks. The best I can do is talk to them about some of those risks. I'm not incredibly specific with them, especially with my kids.

It's important to bring things back from the Space Station because, unlike somebody living at the house where the garbage truck comes by twice a week, they don't have that in space.

There's been a lot of discussion about NASA culture and changing that. I think our culture has always been one of trying to do a very difficult job and do it well.

Later, after flying in the Navy for four or five years, spending some time on an aircraft carrier, I applied to and was accepted in a program where I went to graduate school first and then to the Naval Test Pilots School.

He's working a lot harder than I am. I tell these people that we really appreciate what they're doing for us.

I think we've done that. But it's not something you really notice, 'cause I've always thought the people here have always done their best, and they continue to do their best. They just might do it a little bit differently.

Well, I have an undergraduate degree, a couple of bachelor's degrees, from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

Three of us will help the other two get suited up, get them in the hatch, and get them out the door.

There's a lot of interest there in the missions that I fly on and the ones my brother's involved with.

There are a lot of dedicated people out there that don't get the recognition that we get, but they're as important as the people that are sitting in the vehicle.

Well, if you're looking for me to lead a normal representative life, well good luck finding a foreign secretary who'd be like that - totally dependant on the political system and has never earned any money. Then you'll get the politicians you deserve.

It was R.E.M. who showed other Eighties bands how to get away with ignoring the rules - they lived in some weird town nobody never heard of, they didn't play power chords, they probably couldn't even spell 'spandex.' All they had was songs.

Theology necessitates an image of God as a conscious, rational, supernatural being of unlimited power and scope who cares about humans and imposes moral codes and responsibilities upon them, thereby generating serious intellectual questions such as: 'Why does God allow us to sin?' 'Does the Sixth Commandment prohibit war?'

Series television is either a nightmare or the best thing in the whole world. It really depends on, I think, where you are in your life.

In Brussels, you are able to have a lot of appointments in a day. In Paris, you can have one, two, maybe three, but you spend all your time on the road, in the car or in the suburbs. In Brussels, everything is easy. It's not a very big city, and the people are very quiet and warm.

We should foster a culture in which people’s private religious beliefs, including atheists and agnostics, are respected.

Like most parents, I want everything for my kids that I didn't have. But I don't intend to spoil them. I just enjoy everything that comes naturally with parenthood.

Politicians, it's in their job description to just lie, every day.

There's no time to waste. Every day, there needs to be movement on something.

It takes about three times as long to explain to someone why you won't give them an autograph as it does to actually give them an autograph.

I'd love to own a bakery at some point. My grandmother could help me run it - she is an amazing baker! I'd also love to do a cookbook.

Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences.

Producing perfection from imperfection is, after all, the highest of art forms.

As long as anger, paranoia and misinformation drive our political debate, there are unhinged souls among us who will feel justified in turning to violent remedies for imagined threats.

It makes a big difference in your life when you stay positive.

Within the U.N. itself, I have appointed a record number of women to high-level positions. I did not fill jobs with women just for the sake of it - I looked for the best possible candidate, and I found that if you strip away discrimination, the best possible candidate is often a woman.

My parents were farmers' kids from South Dakota. My dad was an engineer. I wanted to be responsible and major in something pragmatic.

Many discouraging hours will arise before the rainbow of accomplished goals will appear on the horizon.

My favorite country blues player was Big Bill Broonzy. City blues was Freddie King, but I liked them all - Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Ralph Willis, Lonnie Johnson, Brownie McGhee and the three Kings, B.B., Albert and Freddie. Jazz-wise, I listened to Django, Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery.

Men are foolish to expect us to revere them, when, in the end, they amount to almost nothing.

I try to be like a sponge when I'm around other actors, picking things up about the way they work and how they do things.

An operatic voice is like no other.

To be honest, I've made a game out of trying to live through my James Dean, Janis Joplin, Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison period, those demons that we all have that we're either successful or not at making work for us rather than destroy us.

If you find diseases before they've really emerged, you can control them early on, before you get a major epidemic.