Leroy Chiao Astronaut Quotations

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.