As can be imagined, the NASA managers and engineers were careful about what went on board the Space Shuttle. Each piece of equipment, each item that went into the stowage lockers, each widget or pair of socks had a part number and was catalogued in voluminous detail for each mission. Nothing could be left behind on the ground; nothing could be there that shouldn’t be. All astronauts understood this was a necessary attention to detail for...

Potty training is never easy for children – or adults planning to go into space. I had been an astronaut for four years and married for a little over a year when our first child, Paul, was born in July of 1982.    My first Space Shuttle flight was slated for early 1985. As every mother knows, two year olds can be a challenge.  Paul was in the throes of the “terrible twos” but, otherwise, he was a wonderful little boy.  Then there was the potty...

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...

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...