Duane G. Carey Quotes

I don't think you ever really decide that you want to be an astronaut. I put in an application and hoped for the best.

Becoming an astronaut was a little bit of happenstance for me.

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

And, so I set my goals on astronaut because, as a military aviator, it was, I considered that to be about the peak of a flying career.

Two months after I got out of test pilot school, I saw an advert that said NASA was recruiting more astronauts. The best job you could have as a test pilot was being an astronaut, so I volunteered.

NASA has never had a problem finding capable people to be astronauts. NASA's problem was, and still is, finding ways to cut the list of capable applicants down to a manageable length.

Then, much later, my next dream was to become an astronaut, and I was fortunate to realize that dream, also.

I can't think of anything specific growing up that pointed me toward NASA at all. I was interested in the Moon landings just about the same as everyone else of my generation. But I never really thought about being an astronaut or working in space myself.

The opportunities to become an astronaut in Canada were far and few.

I saw this movie 'The Right Stuff' when I was in college, and it really rekindled my interest in being an astronaut. I started taking those steps, and then I realized it would be the chance of a lifetime. It would be a dream life: not just a job, but the whole life.

Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience - ideally, a test pilot background.

Although as a boy I had dreamed about going into space, I had completely forgotten about that until one day I received a call from an astronaut, who suggested that I should join the program.

So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.

To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.

Not until the space shuttle started flying did NASA concede that some astronauts didn't have to be fast-jet pilots. And at that point, sure enough, women started becoming astronauts.

It so happened that my goals kind of matched my career progression toward becoming an astronaut.

By my mid-30s, I just thought, 'This is not going to happen. I am never going to become an astronaut in the U.K.'

I believe that there will be women astronauts sometime just as there are women airplane pilots.

I loved being a test pilot, and so being an astronaut was - was not my end point in, you know, either I achieved success by being an astronaut, or if I don't get picked, I'm not successful. I loved my career as a pilot, and it was a bonus to be selected as an astronaut.

All astronauts, even civilians like me without pilot experience, have to learn how to co-pilot a jet called a T-38.

Most astronauts are very down-to-earth people. Many of us, three-quarters, have an engineering degree, and we have a very Cartesian, rational approach to things.

Spoiler alert: I did not become an astronaut.

I first told my parents that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was 3 years old.

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

Ever since I saw the moon landing as a young teenager, I was determined I would go into space one day.