“I realized much later in life that the reason this decision between MIT and IBM was so agonizing was because it wasn't really about choosing a career; it was about deciding who I was, which part of myself I wanted… — Mike Massimino Copy Share Image
“I knew right then that I wanted to be a part of something that meaningful. I wanted to have something I was so passionate about that I'd be willing to risk everything for it. I wanted to know that if I ever got killed, I got killed doing something worthwhile. The kid who looked up at the moon and wasn't… — Mike Massimino Copy Share
“There are emergency placards and safety signs all over the interior of the shuttle, telling you what to do and where to go. That… — Mike Massimino Copy Share Image
“Life is funny. I'd applied to the wrong graduate program, but that eventually led me to the right grad program. I'd taken what I thought was the wrong undergraduate major, and that was the thing that set me apart and allowed me to find my niche. I don't know if there are any lessons to take from that except to… — Mike Massimino Copy Share
“Right after we launched, I realized that all the training we'd on what to do if something went wrong during launch-how to bail out , how to operate the parachutes, how to make an emergency landing-I realized that all those years of training were completely pointless. It was just filler to make us feel okay about climbing into this thing.… — Mike Massimino Copy Share
“My favorite lecturer was Alan Bean, who flew on Apollo 12 and is one of the twelve guys who walked on the moon. After retiring from NASA, he became a painter. Alan's lecture was called "The Art of Space Exploration." He talked about the mistakes he'd made and how he learned to fix them. One lesson that took him a… — Mike Massimino Copy Share
“That's how a team works. You help the people around you, and everybody's better off for it. The crazy thing is that most of those guys wanted to be astronauts, too, but they never saw it as a competition. We were on the same team, where you want everyone around you to be as successful as possible, because in some… — Mike Massimino Copy Share
“My childhood dream came true, but now I have a new one. I dream that some of these young people, while they're out there clicking around, maybe they'll find out about this book and find a way to get their hands on it - and when they do, they'll know that even if you're a skinny kid from Long Island… — Mike Massimino Copy Share
“If you work hard and get help from good friends, together you can overcome almost any challenge, no matter how great.” — Mike Massimino Copy Share Image
“It was one of those perfect nights, listening to the waves crash, feeling the warm summer breeze, watching the sun set over the ocean as the moon rose up in the sky. I looked out over the cliffs and I thought about the explorers who had sailed from places like this, what they'd accomplished, mapping the unknown world, charting our… — Mike Massimino Copy Share
“The camaraderie that firefighters have, that brotherhood that forms among them - my father was a part of that, and it came from having… — Mike Massimino Copy Share Image
“I realized much later in life that the reason this decision between MIT and IBM was so agonizing was because it wasn't really about… — Mike Massimino Copy Share Image
“The important thing in life is having a passion, something you really love doing, and you take joy in the fact that you get… — Mike Massimino Copy Share Image
