The view from space was incredible.  From 200 miles up, there was a completely new perspective.  To see the distinctive hook of Cape Cod or the blues and greens of the Great Barrier Reef as I sipped my morning coffee reminded me how lucky I was to be an Astronaut.  We had a wonderful teacher, Dr. Bill Muehlberger from the University of Texas in our early days of training.  He took us on field trips to show us what Earth looked like from ground...

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...