I flew fighters for the Navy in San Diego for three years, went and did my post-graduate education, and then I was a test pilot in Patuxent River, Maryland, for a few years. I was back in the fleet in the Navy when I was selected to come back here to NASA to become an astronaut.
People say I'm bad at a lot of things. One I agree with is that I'm a bad driver.
When a young person is sent 'up the river,' we need to remember that all rivers can change course.
A river is a river, independent of whether there are other rivers nearby. In science, we call things what they are based on their attributes, not what they're next to.
The first mission to Mars did not expect to find craters and river valleys, and yet they did. The first mission to Jupiter didn't expect to find ocean worlds and volcano worlds, but they did.
We live, in North America in general, if I'm given the indulgence of selling us down the river, in a culture of fear of this connective sense of spirit.
Alpha men are very turned on by the alpha woman, really high chemistry, really fun to work with, probably really fun to have affairs with, but there's not sustainable harmony in that lack of complement. There can only be one person in the driver's seat.
After taking a retreat into the woods of the Russian River Valley to write, reflect, and commune with nature and one another, 'Amethyst Journey' was born. The album is a collection of songs that are a combination of our outlook and inspirations - a response to current issues and the state of our planet.
Wouldn't it be great if cars came equipped with screens like that thing they have in Times Square that spells out the news? You could punch out your own instant messages: 'Will the small red car with the ugly driver please stay a little further behind?'
I probably learned, being in 'Taxi Driver' before I made my first film, I would come to the set every day just to watch how that film came about. It's like a graduate course: it's terrific. You talk to the cinematographer during the breaks. You ask the electrician why they are doing this.
