Launch countdown was proceeding well. We tightened our seatbelts and stared upward. We had been waiting for this moment. The engines lit, the boosters ignited, and we were on our way up, up, up! Seconds later, an alarm. We had a failure of one of our three fuel cells. The pilot (PLT) looked at the computer screen and called out to us and Mission Control that it was fuel cell 2. The ground controllers, the flight commander (CDR), and our flight...

10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1 We have lift-off! Every astronaut waited for these words. After years of getting there, months of training and practice, followed by hours of sitting atop a rocket, these words were much anticipated. The road to space on launch day wasn’t always as smooth. The official launch countdown took several days. All systems were checked and had to be A-OK. The crew climbed aboard about two hours before the planned launch...

What would you choose to pack in your suitcase for a trip to space? If you look at the pictures of Astronauts in formal crew pictures or in flight, you’ll notice evolution going on. In the beginning of the Shuttle program, the brave souls who were crazy enough to fly on this untested vehicle (the first that flew unmanned for its first flight) wore pressure suits like high altitude pilots (with parachute attached), so they could use the ejection...

The Space Shuttle went around the Earth every ninety minutes.  Half the orbit was in daylight, half in darkness.  That meant there was a sunrise, then forty-five minutes later a sunset.  We went around the world sixteen times a day.  For a fourteen-day mission (my longest), that’s 224 sunrises and 224 sunsets.  They were nothing like what people see standing in their backyards here on the ground. Coming out of the dark side of the orbit, a...

It was beautiful to look at Earth from space; however, from that different perspective some things that are amazing on the ground aren’t spectacular from orbit. For instance, the Grand Canyon looks like the crack on top of a well-baked cheesecake. On two of my flights, I flew far enough north to see Tennessee, my home.  After passing the winding Mississippi River, I looked hard to find my hometown.  The whole area was a verdant green, the...