Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

I think young folks have a good sense of what they want to do.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

As an undergraduate majoring in biology at the University of California, San Diego, I worked on infectious diseases at the nearby Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

I was the one with a subscription to 'Sky and Telescope' magazine as a kid while my friends were reading 'Tiger Beat.'

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

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.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

Sequencing DNA on the ISS will enable NASA to see what happens to genetic material in space in real time, rather than looking at a snapshot of DNA before launch and another snapshot of DNA after launch and filling in the blanks.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

You need nerves of steel if climbing aboard a rocket is your career path.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

I kind of watch anything on the Syfy channel.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

I think it's reasonable: you can own your nerd credibility when you're an astronaut.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

We're pretty interested in microbial communities on-board space stations. It's a closed-loop system. Our water is recycled; our air is recycled.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

My lab used to do gene expression and genomics, and we did a lot of sequencing samples from virus outbreaks.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

When I was in grad school, I wanted to be in academia forever.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

When I was 16, my dad took me to a DNA conference at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco, California, and I was captivated by this way of looking at biology and by the discussions of bits of nucleic acid that could make us sick.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

I decided to do graduate studies in virology at Stanford University in California because it had a hospital, which made working on clinical applications easier.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

Joining NASA was very exciting, but it was the hardest decision I have had to make in my life.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

There's actually an incredible amount of parallels between working in central Congo in a remote, isolated village and doing research aboard the space station.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

For long-duration exploration missions, NASA is looking for folks with a lot of operational, hands-on experience, people who have been in field-type situations such as military deployments. In my case, I worked in the Congo and in Biosafety Level 4 labs on smallpox.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

NASA trains you to assess emergency situations and react in a way to keep yourself and everyone else safe.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

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.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

Most germs aren't bad. You're in a microbial environment all the time.

Kathleen Rubins
Kathleen Rubins

We have to engineer devices that are going to work in space stations. Those same things are going to work in the most remote regions on Earth.