Kathleen Rubins Quotes

The thing I remember most about space is the view from the spacewalk. When I was inside the space shuttle and looking through the window, you can see the earth and the stars, and it's very beautiful, but it's like looking at an aquarium, sort of. When you go outside and spacewalk, you become a scuba diver.

I still dream about being on the space station with the feeling of being weightless. The weightlessness is the most amazing, relaxing and natural feeling.

You have a lot of things to do when you're out on a space walk, and that sort of overwhelms your mind.

They say that in space, nobody can hear you scream. The first time I stepped out of the airlock, I was ready to scream - not because I was scared but because I was so excited to see the Earth below me.

The first time I went into space was just so much more than you could imagine or prepare yourself for.

In 2009 I went up on the space shuttle. I was in space for 16 days and docked at the space station for 11 days. The entire crew did five space walks, of which I was involved with three of them. When you're doing a space walk, you always have a buddy with you. It's a very dangerous environment when you're doing a space walk.

It's a really big deal to do a spacewalk. It's much riskier than staying indoors. It's complex. It uses up a lot of the precious resources onboard. It uses up oxygen. It uses up carbon dioxide scrubbers.

When the space shuttle's engines cut off, and you're finally in space, in orbit, weightless... I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that's when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.

I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be than outside the space shuttle in my space suit next to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Walking in space is absolutely the most exhilarating part of a mission. The view is just incredible.

On the second flight, we were doing a lot of science experiments, and we've got a really cool window called the cupola. It's a big, circular window with six panes around, sort of at angles so you can see the Earth, you can see the edge of the Earth, you can go out - look out into the universe. It's pretty spectacular.

In space, you need to stay as 'usual' as possible. On the space station, I would brush my hair every day.

I thought I was prepared for space, and it still absolutely defied every expectation and dream. It is an incredible thing to put yourself on a rocket and launch off the planet. It is an amazing thing to see the planet from space. This blue sphere is almost indescribably beautiful.

I'm looking forward to getting to space, looking back to earth out the copula window. I think all of it is going to be a completely new experience that I can't quite predict.

After being once in space, I was keen to go back there. But it didn't happen.

The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you've ever seen a space IMAX movie, that's really what it looks like. I wish I'd had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map, but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time.

I cannot wait to get up there and experience space travel for the first time. It will be a dream come true.

I can't think of anything that's as exciting as I'm sure this mission will be, and actually being in space. But, we did some training as a crew together.

A journey into space is the greatest adventure I can imagine.

I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.

Being outside during the space walk, the view of the Earth is just spectacular, and getting a chance to do that is just unbelievable, everything about it. You are going around the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, so you have 45 minutes of sunlight followed by 45 minutes of darkness. You do a lap every 90 minutes.

It's a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It's an interesting place to be. I recommend it.

It is an incredible treat and certainly one of the highlights of any astronaut's career to do a spacewalk.

I had been lucky that my physiology is well suited to space training.

To be on my very first spacewalk, to be outside, and to have contamination in my suit to the point that I couldn't see in either eye - that, I think, would cause some people to lose control.