Kathleen Rubins

“We have to engineer devices that are going to work in space stations. Those same things are going to work in the most remote regions on Earth.”

“It changes your perspective to be able to look out the window and see the planet. One of the thoughts that I had when I first got up here was, 'We really do live on a planet, and we are in a solar system, and we are flying through space right now.' I mean, this is something that you know, obviously, but to see the planet - it's amazing.”

“Most germs aren't bad. You're in a microbial environment all the time.”

“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.”

“When you go to vacuum in the airlock and you take the hose off the front of your space suit, there's a little bit of water in there, and you can see that sublimate and ice crystals form and fly away. My thought at that moment was, 'Oh, we are not kidding at vacuum here; we are really in space.'”

“I kind of watch anything on the Syfy channel.”

“When I was at Stanford, I was actually in the cancer biology program, but I mostly focused on infectious disease.”

“When we're doing the space walks, we're working very very hard. Every single minute is choreographed. But there's a few minutes here and there where ground is maybe talking about something, and you have to put your tools down and wait. Just getting a chance to look through your visor and see the planet go by was incredible.”

“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.”

“I'm involved with health care/medical supply delivery to Africa and started a non-profit organization to bring supplies to Congo.”

“You need nerves of steel if climbing aboard a rocket is your career path.”

“I was the one with a subscription to 'Sky and Telescope' magazine as a kid while my friends were reading 'Tiger Beat.'”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Young people can accomplish a lot.”

“If you find something that you're excited about and you're interested in, my advice to young women and young men would be do what you're really interested in and what drives and motivates you.”

“The planet is beautiful.”