I wanted to be a pilot. I loved flying and I loved all the technology and the equipment and the sense of adventure that came with it. I think that feeling still bleeds over into everything I do today. ↗
We were flying on a winged vehicle that would do reentry different than we had ever done before. So all of those were firsts. Test pilots truly love firsts. ↗
And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning. ↗