I Just Wanted To Be The First

When I First Looked Back At The Earth, Standing On The Moon I Cried

But When I Was Selected, After My Very First Tour Of Squadron Duty, To Become One Of The Youngest Candidates For The Test Pilot School, I Began To Realize, Maybe You Are A Little Bit Better.

I Think The Sense Of Family And Family Achievement, Plus The Discipline Which I Received There From That One-room School Were Really Very Helpful In What I Did Later On.

We Wanted To Be In Great Shape, We Wanted To Be Able To Cope With Zero Gravity, We Wanted To Be Able To Cope With Accelerations And Decelerations And So On. So All Of Us Trained So That We Were Probably In The Best Physical Condition We Had Ever Been In Up Until That Point.

You've Done It In The Simulator So Many Times, You Don't Have A Real Sense Of Being Excited When The Flight Is Going On. You're Excited Before, But As Soon As The Liftoff Occurs, You Are Busy Doing What You Have To Do.