A: When I decided that I wanted to leave Xerox and seek employment in the fledgling personal computer industry, Bob Metcalfe (the inventor of Ethernet) helped me draw up a list of the key players. Microsoft was first on my list and I was so impressed by Bill Gates' vision that I did not interview with any of the others.

A: Not at all. It is just like being in a big airliner that is almost empty, but your friends are there. Of course you have to study hard so you know how to fix things if they break! While you fix things, there is always a spare. For example, after I returned to Earth, I've heard that the computer broke down on the space station. This is a problem because the computer controls many things, including the oxygen generators, and people need oxygen to breathe, right? But they had plenty of spare oxygen to use while they fixed the computer, and all was well again. I am sorry I missed all the excitement. When I was there, nothing broke down at all!

A: I've checked with the crew and they tell me they just swapped out the Lada experiment with the next version and the plants are doing fine, but that will really be determined after the samples are returned.

A: Before I went to space, I sometimes flew on the Concorde - the supersonic airliner that no longer flies. It went up to 60,000 feet, which is the highest that airlines ever flew. Normally, an airliner flies at around 37,000 feet. On the Concorde you could notice that the sky was a little darker, and the Earth was a little rounder than from other airplanes. It was always very exciting. I also had one flight on a Russian fighter plane, called the Mig-31, with the code name "Foxhound". It was specially built to go very high and very fast. We went to 70,000 feet, but the weather was pretty cloudy and we could not see much. During my training for space, I had to pass a test to spend two hours in my own space suit in a vacuum chamber which was simulating an altitude of 110,000 feet (34 km). I was thinking then how that was the "highest" I've ever been, but it was only a simulation. Once I was launched on the rocket, within a minute I was flying higher than ever before.

A: I think dreaming is the closest one can get on Earth to the feeling of being in space. I am talking about the feeling of floating, flying, being outside of things that one can experience sometimes in a dream. I've heard floating in a pool as being something similar, but in my opinion that misses many aspects. Flying on the "zero-gravity" airplane or in the newest amusement park rides that create very short weightless moments also give hints to what spaceflight is like. Looking outside from maneuvering high-performance jets, like what the Blue Angels fly, can also look like one is "outside" of the Earth, that the Earth can be above oneself, not only below. I have to say, the moviemakers have done a pretty good job on representing the space experience. Even the hokey "slo-mo" simulation of moving around in weightlessness is a pretty good approximation of what is going on. Novices, at least, always seem to move up there in slow motion, worrying about gathering too much momentum and smashing into things.