27 Quotes by Linda M. Godwin

As always, we prepare for all sorts of contingencies. And the first few days of the flight up until docking on Day 3 are all spent really in the rendezvous because we launch at a time that puts us in an optimal position to catch up to station.

It's really a good feeling to know that we put this up there, that it's working, that all these people's plans that worked so hard came together and things fit and we've got a real space station.

It's really kind of a challenge to keep coordinated with the two station crews that we'll be interacting with. And of course one of them launched quite some time before our mission.

Although I know a lot of the previous shuttle flights, in theory, had their tasks laid out; but there were still some changes that came along for them.

UF is Utilization Flight. That got put in the manifest quite some time ago.

In the Astronaut Office we're never totally out of training, we always keep our hand in it. But after five years, things have changed and so it's been good to get back into the flow and relearn a lot of things.

It definitely helps to have been through the arm training flow before and to have used the arm on orbit, and it also gives me the confidence to know that our training facilities are really good, that when you get up there, you feel like you've been there.

Our shuttle crew is four people, because we're going to transfer a crew up to station, so all the jobs are divided between four people rather than five or six people. So it's been busy.

There's a lot of interest from the medical community on how things develop in microgravity, and the hope, later, that is expected to apply to what the changes are in humans as well.