Leroy Chiao Quotations

I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.

One day, people will be able to buy tickets to visit space.

There were different challenges along the way. Certainly the food shortage was unpleasant.

One of my challenges was to try to photograph the Great Wall of China. And I did actually take some photos, but it was hard to discern the wall with the naked eye.

Coming down under a parachute is quite different as well. You hit the ground pretty hard, but all the systems work very well to keep it from hurting, so it doesn't even hurt when you hit. It was a great experience to be able to do both.

There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped me in my career as an astronaut, it was more the general education in engineering. Also, it was a very difficult and rigorous course. So, it made me strong and resourceful.

Our task was doing maintenance and repairs to keep the station in a good state for the return of the shuttle flights and resumption of major ISS construction.

The most interesting thing was looking out the window and taking photographs of different places on Earth.

I hope that China will continue with space exploration. It would be logical to have international co-operation. I hope that it will come about and that I can be involved in it.

Well, it's still a bit uncertain, but I will do the consulting, and I'll see how I can contribute. But I'm sure whatever I do will involve the space program. That's where my passion is.

I loved flying as much as I thought I would and continue to fly aircraft.

I would say keep supporting space flight, keep telling the public and the politicians why it's important to advance science and explore the galaxy. I encourage the Japanese to keep doing what they're doing.

Of course, you'll have to meet the physical and psychological demands. A space walk takes a lot of energy.

I had done everything I could do as an astronaut, and we have a long line of inexperienced astronauts waiting for their first missions, and so my role really should be to step aside and help them prepare for their missions, rather than to try to get another mission.

I think it's good to have competition. Now we have a third country that can launch astronauts, so it's good for all of us. It makes us a little bit more competitive and wanting to be the leader.

But a lot of that kind of work is done pre-flight, coordinating efforts with the flight directors and the ground teams, and figuring out how you're going to operate together.

Tinkering is something we need to know how to do in order to keep something like the space station running. I am a tinkerer by nature.

I spent a lot of my time working in the American module, and he would stay in the Russian segment working on his things, and we'd meet up at meal times. So it actually worked out very well.

Of course it's exciting to be in space, exciting to look down at the Earth and perform the science experiments and maintenance work.

My parents always tried to teach us the best of both, the Chinese ethic of hard work and education and the American ethic of innovation of aspiration.

I think one of the big moments for me was the second EVA. Basically it was the last EVA of my career, my flying career, so it was poignant for me to look out in to the black, open space and bid space farewell.

We've been soaking everything up in this week of transition, ... The station looks quite a bit different from the last time I was here.

We think Mars exploration is in our future. It may be a little ways out there possibly but that's the whole essence of being human is that we'd like to explore and Mars is something we have dreamed about and set our sights on.

But it's also a lot of hard work, and it's a long time to be away from your family and friends. So I had a lot of different feelings.

My running ambition is to keep doing it until I'm way past the point where I have any business running. Just to keep doing it throughout my whole life—to stay fit and feel good.

Space is very unforgiving business

As commander I was responsible for the overall success of the mission, and so I had to know at least a little bit about everything.

The mental stress shouldn't be underplayed. When you're out there doing the work, you can't help but feel the pressure.