I think young folks have a good sense of what they want to do.
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.
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.
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.
I think it's reasonable: you can own your nerd credibility when you're an astronaut.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
NASA trains you to assess emergency situations and react in a way to keep yourself and everyone else safe.
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.
Most germs aren't bad. You're in a microbial environment all the time.