Victor J. Glover

I applied to do a fellowship in Congress and I was accepted to be a legislative fellow, so I go to work on the personal staff of a senator. I got very lucky and got to work in the office of Senator John McCain, and it was a yearlong program.

But floating for an extended period is truly amazing. My brain is constantly trying to figure out which way is up. It's an interesting challenge, one I find slightly amusing.

So looking at the planet from this perspective - to see the Earth and these beautiful land masses and oceans without lines or words drawn on them - it just heightens an awareness that the planet needs protection, and human life needs protection, and we are the ones who have to protect it.

My family on the ground is definitely in my thoughts and in my prayers, and on my socks.

I'm excited just to go to space.

Seeing Earth from here is quite spectacular, and it also makes me realize how important it is that we do all that we can to take care of it.

One thing, the very first time I got out of the seat, after Resilience was safely in orbit and I looked out the window and saw the Earth from 250 miles up, I will never forget that moment.

In the original 'Star Trek' TV series, space stations served as deep-space research laboratories, as well as rendezvous points where starships could dock before exploring the unknown. When we were envisioning our own space station, the applications were similar.

But thanks to the International Space Station, we're able to study the effects of weightlessness and develop countermeasures in orbit, close to Earth.

The thought of flying here and rocketing out, it's just surreal, it really is. I wake up and I go, 'I really am at Kennedy Space Center.'

I studied engineering at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, and between my junior and senior years I actually joined the Navy, while I was still in college.

In Corpus Christi in 2000 I did primary flight training, and for all of 2001 I was in Kingsville for advanced flight training, and that's where I learned to fly jets.

When the engine cut off and we were in orbit, it was surreal.

Resilience is one of the most important aspects in this business and exploration period.

I really look forward to every single bit of it. Every time I do something in space, it will be the first time.

Before I go and even get in an airplane to go on a flight, I say a prayer, and I always think about my family.

As we've grown our family, that's really when I've started to develop a real, true appreciation of my own faith and not just the academic.

I have no misgivings about using a flight computer.

I will say this: The overriding feeling that I have is that I want to go up there and do my job well and then come back and tell a great story about a great mission and a great team so that people have something to look up to and look forward to.

It truly is a privilege to work and to live here, and to be able to do both makes this just a really unique experience. And so as the only rookie in the group, it was really an honor to become a part of an expedition and see what it's like to fly the International Space Station.

This has been a really interesting journey, the seven years I've been at NASA, and it's been a real exercise personally and professionally, but also spiritually.

I want to use the abilities that God has given me to do my job well and support my crewmates and mission and NASA.

God assigned me a few really important things: this life, this vessel, but also my wife and that relationship, the two of us becoming one and then the family that we've grown with our four daughters.

There was a point where I was just saying to myself, breathe. Inhale, because I felt really heavy - I felt like those cartoons when they experience G and your face is just sagging down.

I think we all need to be able to dream in all colors.