[Curiosity about space begins for most people when they are young, but only a few go on to become voyagers in the cosmos. The STS 93 crew talked with space.coms T.E. Sonne about childhood and space. Below are some excerpts from the astronauts pre-launch interviews with the press.]
EILEEN COLLINS. COMMANDER
Q -- Would she have her child go up with her?
A -- "No! I think there is a lot of pushing kids. My overall philosophy is that they should enjoy their childhood!. When I first told her I was going to go she said, Yipee! Wow! and then she went off and did her own thing. She knows I am going up, but she really doesnt understand that not everybodys Mom goes up in space.
"I was an avid reader. I would visit the library and get books about flying- about Amelia Earhart and Jerri Cobb and Jackie Cochran. They were role models and I couldnt read enough about them. I also loved reading about the early astronauts and the Gemini program.
"My family didnt have a lot of resources, so I would earn money for flying lessons. I would take whatever job I could get. (including the Putt-Putt Golf Course.) "
JEFF ASHBY. PILOT
"I was a little guy. Because I was small, I wrestled in the smallest weight class there was. I had to be quite tenacious, and I had a wrestling coach that never gave up on me. I lost my first several matches and he said, Hey, keep working. And you will start winning. And eventually I did. He (Art Madrid) was a positive role model in my life -- showing that hard work pays off eventually. Its amazing what people can do to you in your life without really even knowing it. What lessons they can give you that help you through life. Its really fantastic to know we have the capability to positively help others.
"They (kids) are smart as anything. I cannot believe how smart todays kids are. And they are going to need to be. The kids today are going to be the people in the future who take people to Mars and Titan and Europa and places beyond. They are going to be the doctors and the lawyers. I think that kids today have a lot of pressures that I didnt have. I really respect them for that. Theres a lot more pressure to do drugs and violence and what-not than I had in my childhood and I truly, truly respect the ones that are able to deal with that pressure and come out shining on the other side."
STEVE HAWLEY. MISSION SPECIALIST
"I was always fascinated by stars as a kid and I did have a telescope in my backyard. I grew up in Kansas so the sky was actually dark at night. If I had grown up in Houston, I probably would have ended up doing something else for a living. That experience engendered a couple of dreams I had back then. One was to become an astronomer. That really is what I decided I wanted to do from as far ago as I can remember. And the other was that one day we would build observatories in space so we could get our telescopes above the atmosphere.
"That was a dream I had back then and it gave me incentive to work in school and study math and science with the goal of becoming an astronomer and maybe in some weird quirk of fate have a chance to run an observatory in space
"My dream started in the backyard with this little telescope. Now I have a big telescope (laughter) though actually the one I am
going to look through on this mission isnt much bigger than the one I used as a kid."
CATHERINE "CADY" COLEMAN. MISSION SPECIALIST
"Mostly I want kids to realize that there is a giant universe out there. When they look up at the sky, they are only seeing a tiny piece of whats really going on. There are wild things going on that we havent been able to see yet up there. I think its going to be very exciting to see some of those things when the Chandra X-Ray Observatory gets home.
"In high school, I played the flute in the band and worked in the library so I was a little bit bookish. I think I went back and surprised a few people at my reunion. I did get to give a little talk at my reunion and I just encouraged them to look at their kids (and) realize that this may be the next astronaut and bring them up with that kind of vision."
MICHEL TOGNINI, MISSION SPECIALIST
His own childhood: "I did not have any confidence that I would be a good astronaut. I wasnt a good student. I started to be a good student when I was 14- 15, but up to that point I was not the best student in the class. But what I had very young was a lot of courage, and a lot of determination but my determination was more to play sports and to play soccer than it was to study."
"I tell them (kids interested in being an astronaut) to be in very good physical condition and to study mathematics and you can either be a pilot or engineer."
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