To me, there is something superbly symbolic in the fact that an astronaut, sent up as assistant to a series of computers, found that he worked more accurately and more intelligently than they. Inside the capsule, man is still in charge.

Growing up, people will tell you that you have a better chance to become an astronaut than becoming an NBA player. So when you finally get to the NBA, you've beat the odds. So when you put on that jersey, everything else is downhill.

I saw this movie 'The Right Stuff' when I was in college, and it really rekindled my interest in being an astronaut. I started taking those steps, and then I realized it would be the chance of a lifetime. It would be a dream life: not just a job, but the whole life.

There weren't any astronauts until I was about 10. Yuri Gagarin went into space right around my 10th birthday.

"Centrifuge for astronauts, karmic nostalgia

As when astronaut Mike Mulhane was asked by a NASA psychiatrist what epitaph he'd like to have on his gravestone, Mulhane answered, "A loving husband and devoted father," though in reality, he jokes in "Riding Rockets," "I would have sold my wife and children into slavery for a ride into space.

A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age ... pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don't want to be who they are any more. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell the Third, Ann-Margret, the cat members of Rent, V?clav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It's universal.

"But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup.

Before I settled on music I wanted to be an archaeologist an astronaut all sorts of really diverse things.

I wanted to be an astronaut and wanted to go to space camp but then I found out that I was too short to become an astronaut. My mom really made me believe that if I worked hard enough and if I really wanted to do it I could do it.

I wanted to make sure that the man who found the genie would not take terrible advantage of her so he needed to be a person of integrity and honor - which is why I made the male lead an astronaut. The rest as they say is history.

The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.

To me there is something superbly symbolic in the fact that an astronaut sent up as assistant to a series of computers found that he worked more accurately and more intelligently than they. Inside the capsule man is still in charge.

There weren't any astronauts until I was about 10. Yuri Gagarin went into space right around my 10th birthday.

While I'm not a celebrity it's such a weird concept that society has cooked up for us. Astronauts and teachers are much more amazing than actors.