HOUSTON Astronaut Steve Smith revealed why he loves to fly in space during a celebration in Houston for the triumphant Hubble Space Telescope repair crew.

"Because riding a rocket is really cool and I like making my mommy nervous," Smith told a young boy in the crowd at the Space Center in Houston's auditorium. STS 103's crew members and about 400 fans gathered Tuesday night to reminisce about the December shuttle mission to repair the orbiting Space Telescope.

Once the laughter died down, Smith explained that he actually went into space for science and to make the world a better place.

Mission Commander Curt Brown, pilot Scott Kelly and mission specialists John Grunsfeld, Michael Foale and Jean-François Clervoy all attended the event. Mission specialist Claude Nicollier is currently training in Europe.

Before Discoverys flight, Hubble was effectively shut down after a gyroscope failure halted its stream of science data. The flights urgency grew as six delays, due to technical problems and bad weather at Cape Canaveral, kept the shuttle on the ground.

The crew preformed three spacewalks on the eight-day flight and brought Hubble back to life.

Additionally, Discoverys crew performed their tasks during the Christmas holidays. The last NASA flight that took place during the holiday was Skylab in the 1970s.

"It was a special place for Christmas," said pilot Scott Kelly, who made his first trip into space on board Discovery during the repair mission. "We received a lot of e-mails from mission support people saying they wouldnt be anywhere else but working the mission."

Brown made his sixth trip into space; a feat putting him into an elite group of five men to fly in space that many times.

He said the success of the STS 103 mission was due to the training and support on the ground.

"We just did what yall told us to do," Brown said. "We couldnt have done it without you."

After pinning the NASA Space Flight Medal on the six astronauts chests, Johnson Space Center Director George Abbey concurred.

"This mission would not have been a success without a lot of team effort, and a lot of sacrifice over the Christmas holidays," he said. "A lot of people worked to make this mission meaningful."