John L. Phillips

It took me a long time to get selected as an astronaut. In fact, I applied for 20 years before I was selected.

Even with only two people on board, where maintenance is a large piece of our working day, we still have time to do scientific research. We have to be ready to support those Shuttle visits in a lot of different ways.

My dad served in two wars has been flying airplanes for 60 years now. He was certainly quite an inspiration.

Since the Columbia accident, the Russian space agency, or the Russian space program, has been literally carrying the load bringing us all the supplies we need on the Progress vehicle, smaller amounts on the Soyuz vehicles.