“Writers are the custodians of memory, and memories have a way of dying with their owner.” William Zinsser wrote that in his book, Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past. That was a good reason to proceed with my book. It reminded me that my memories are uniquely my own, and they can’t accurately be told by a ghost writer, no matter how talented. Consider the recent book Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space,...

These modern-day heroes became my friends in the Shuttle’s heyday.  All are very bright (some brilliant), friendly, hard-working, reliable, and productive.  I had the opportunity to serve twice on selection boards for new astronauts.  We liked to say we were looking for high-performing, low-maintenance people. That is not to say they were serious all the time.  In fact, they were the most fun-loving people I have ever known.  There was the...

Imagine looking out at a sea of bright young faces in a faraway land, a place called Australia. In 1994 I had been invited to be the Astronaut-in-Residence at Melbourne’s St. Catherine’s School. In a huge auditorium, I faced several hundred girls from tiny four year olds to blossoming teens. Then, they began to sing.  After a lengthy plane ride to this “Land Down Under,” a song rang out and linked me to home.  Their glorious rendition of “The...

In May of 1981, I married fellow astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson, and we had a decision to make: children now or children later.  The first Shuttle flight had launched six weeks earlier, and no one was sure how quickly other flights would follow.  My biological clock kept saying, “You ain’t gettin’ any younger.”  I was 33. Although I was very committed to my career, the opportunity to have a child or children was more important.  We decided to...

“I own a flight school.” Those words spoken in 1973 by a plastic surgeon across an operating table in my last semester of medical school were the beginning of my aviation career. When I said I had always hoped to take flying lessons, he invited me for a test flight that weekend at the Memphis airport. Getting into the air and leaving all the sick people behind was exhilarating: I was hooked. My father gave me flying lessons as a graduation...