“There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped ...” — Leroy Chiao Quote

“There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped me in my career as an astronaut, it was more the general education in engineering. Also, it was a very difficult and rigorous course. So, it made me strong and resourceful.”

“The United States ended the space shuttle program in 2011, after the ISS was complete. We gave up a national treasure forever.”

“'Star Trek' was inspiring to me.”

“Our task was doing maintenance and repairs to keep the station in a good state for the return of the shuttle flights and resumption of major ISS construction.”

“The biggest technical challenge to sending astronauts on farther and longer missions is biomedical: How do we keep them healthy?”

“I spent a lot of my time working in the American module, and he would stay in the Russian segment working on his things, and we'd meet up at meal times. So it actually worked out very well.”

“Well, for me it really wasn't a case of deciding to be an astronaut.”

“I remember looking at the moon as an 8-year-old and marveling that there were two astronauts in a lander on the surface, getting ready to go out and actually walk. That settled it for me: I knew I was going to at least try to become an astronaut. I wanted to be like those guys.”

“I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and I can't recall ever not wanting to be an astronaut.”

“I'd love to go to America - I'd love to be an astronaut. I'd love to just do loads of different crazy - like be a cowgirl - just do loads of different crazy stuff like that.”

“Clearly, when I first started talking about the fact that I wanted to be an astronaut, I was in primary school, so people understand that we want to be all kinds of things then. It's not a big deal.”

“I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.”