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it's almost disappointing when you hear

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people say well why do we do this it's

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like

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why wouldn't we do it high school i went

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to a wego free academy

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in upstate new york

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and then college was tulane university

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in new orleans when i was 17 when i left

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home about 1200 miles away to go to

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tulane they had a really good

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engineering school

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which was part of the decision and then

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the other part was

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i i received a naval rotc scholarship

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and i think you know to be in

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engineering in college even as an

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undergraduate i think most people who

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went through it realized that you have

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to enjoy it because it's a lot of work

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it also kind of opened up those doors

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follow on you know it allowed me to go

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to test pilot school

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allowed me to meet the requirements to

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apply to be an astronaut i played every

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sport possible

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i was a team captain on a number of

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sports teams i just enjoyed being part

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of a team having a goal

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uh even

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shuttle crew or an iss crew you're

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talking

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six to seven people

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very much like a sports team in a sense

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obviously a little smaller a little more

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intimate and you you build a huge bond

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with those people just like you would

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with a sports team and i i think you

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know you have a leader you have a

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captain the commander you know you have

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this huge goal that you're trying to

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accomplish and you know you do

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everything you can to make sure you're

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part of that mission is a success

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because you want the team to succeed and

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you know within the department of the

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navy you have the navy in the marine

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corps so i chose to go what they called

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marine option

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and i wanted to be a pilot for me it was

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more i was very interested in space

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and really interested in airplanes and

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and i just kind of followed that passion

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i couldn't think of anything that i

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would have rather done i mean it was

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just i really really enjoyed being being

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a fighter pilot and being a marine i

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love to be outdoors

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you know my father and i would go on a

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trip every year

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some typically somewhere remote you know

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a lot of hiking you know in the

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mountains anytime you're you're hiking

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you just want to see what's over that

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next hill

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i think uh you know we have a history as

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humans of being explorers and then just

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the excitement i mean i think it's just

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it's almost instinctive in a human being

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to want to explore you know i remember

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my first space flight on endeavor

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but with 135 it was a little bit

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different it was a

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one of the highlights of my professional

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career being part of that mission um

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you know you know unique in in a way you

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know there was only four of us on the

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crew

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it was the last flight of the program

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and then and then just the opportunity

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to just

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thank the people that had been involved

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in many cases since the beginning of the

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shuttle program in a way it was very

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bittersweet because

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you know it was the majority

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of

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american human space flight was on the

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space shuttle and

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it does it changes you in a way that's a

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little bit hard to describe a little bit

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of intrinsic change it's a little bit of

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a

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which is this teeny little blue dot

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i don't

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change how you feel about yourself about

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life about the universe we've gone the

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better part of five years plus without a

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domestic capability is tough it's tough

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on us and it's great that we have the

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opportunity to fly with the russians and

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they fly you know a very good vehicle in

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the soyuz

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and so we've been able to maintain our

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presence in space but to be part of this

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where we're returning this capability to

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the united states flying rockets out of

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florida with people on them is

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is very exciting and i think it frankly

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the united states should have this