Frank Culbertson Quotations

We're here today to wish the international space station some greetings itself because today is the one-thousandth day that the first component of the station has been on orbit .

I believe this hardware is the foundation for what will put humanity into space forever. There will always be people off the face of the planet.

It affected us over several days, and every morning when I opened the mail (e-mail), there would be some new piece of information that would hit me pretty hard.

It is an excellent chance to go back up and see the hardware, see how it's been performing, work on a few components that need a little bit of attention and, of course, begin to transfer a large amount of hardware into the station that the crew will use in the future for living and working up there.

We've completed the transfer into the Soyuz and the leak checks.

We got information gradually as the details came out and people understood what had happened and how it was affecting the country and the rest of the world.

You expect somebody to come pick you up and then they call and say, well, they're having second thoughts. That's what a person in that situation would probably think. He's just waiting for the next shoe to fall. But we're going to go get him.

As far as waiting or going, you can't wait on the ground for something else to happen. It looks like the situation is stable.

Yury, Jim, Susan, I know it's a tough day. I know it's hard to say good-bye.

They're incredibly organized and it's going to be a lot easier for us than it might have been if they had not taken the time that they have and spent the time showing us things.

It's a long corridor, basically, that doesn't have a lot of features from one end to the other.

It's interesting that at the very end of the program, after such a smooth (flight) for Andy, that we had this problem occur with the motion-control system. It's frustrating to a certain extent, but, hey, maybe it's our signature. It certainly adds some drama to it.

I'm looking forward to a hot shower and some fresh air and some fresh food -- ice cream, salads, things we don't have on the station. I'm looking forward to seeing my family and friends.

I guess you saw that we're looking at a smoke alarm...but don't see any evidence of anything.