MS. STILSON: Here's a great question from Ian in Perranporth. On launch day, do the astronauts get much opportunity to be alone
with their thoughts or is it all "go" with no time to really think? If the latter is the case,
when do they feel that things have calmed down enough to think and realize the enormity and importance of what they're doing?
MS. HIRE: You know, that's a very good question, because a lot of people are already thinking about the technical
issues and that type of thing. This question actually does focus on what exactly is going through the astronauts' minds.
And I'll tell you, it's true, it is all "go" on launch day. Everything is very much by a schedule. And we all know what we're going for,
we're going for a successful mission. And there is not a lot of time to be alone with your thoughts.
So I can't really address this question for every astronaut, I can only say personally on launch day, just very, very focused
on getting out to that launch pad and getting into space and then getting on with all the tasks that we wanted to do and for a successful mission.
It seemed like it took me even a while just to even recognize I was in space, because we had trained this for this so long,
sometimes it just varies. You get so busy and then you go, oh, I forgot, I'm in space. There's a real view out the window instead of
the simulated one like we experience in the simulators. So very, very good question and it's a personal level of when
each astronaut can truly recognize the enormity of the fact that you're traveling at 17,500 miles per hour above the surface of the Earth.