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For astronauts their first flight is

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generally the the thing that's most

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exciting for them. That's the thing that they

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remember the most. And I still remember

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rocketing up, going from zero velocity to

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18,000 miles an hour in about eight and

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a half minutes so the ride up was

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exciting. And then the view on orbit is

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spectacular. You get to see the Earth

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from 150-260 miles up and you realize

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how wonderful this planet is and you get

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very pretty vistas and that sort of

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thing. And then the other thing that I

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enjoyed was zero-g. I enjoyed floating around in zero-g and the freedom that

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you have in zero-g. So for me, flying in

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space was a wonderful experience.

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I was excited about flying on STS-8.  I

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recognized that I was opening the door

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for other African-Americans to fly in

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space, but I was also part of a team with

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reference to learning how to fly the

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shuttle at night, both launch

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as well as landing. So I take a great

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deal of pride in that, not only for what