>> I think maybe one of the more rewarding parts of my job was that I got to deal very closely
with what we call the ultimate customer -- the astronaut that would actually use our equipment
when they would go do space walks.
Knowing them and knowing their spouses and their kids was always very special.
I think people tend to think of astronauts - people not living in Houston tend to think
of astronauts as a combination of an athletic star and a movie star,
and that you would never see them.
And that's not the case with astronauts.
I was telling somebody yesterday the story of - we - in my church, Saint Paul the Apostle,
a Catholic church in Nassau Bay, Texas,
we have several astronauts who are members - parishioners.
And a year or two ago one of those parishioners was orbiting the Earth
on Thursday, landed later on Thursday.
And at the 5:00 o'clock Mass on Saturday afternoon, she was in the pew next to me.
So, you know, those kinds of things are kind of hard to describe but very rewarding
at the same time -- because they are real people.
I had a long career, 43 years.
And over that career, there are ups and downs.
And every career is filled with ups and downs.
We tend to focus on the ups; that's what we have been talking about,
you know, the real super-highs.
But there is some - there are some lows.
My favorite quote is Thomas Paine in 1776.
And he said, "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
So if you always won every game, you'd never appreciate winning.
You have to lose occasionally.
And over my long career at NASA, we had some devastating losses, you know.
We lost two crew members while I was - two sets of crews while I was there.
And in Houston, the whole company - the whole country mourned that loss.
But in Houston these were coworkers of ours.
These were people we went to church with.
And so that was hard.
And so I think I - you know, I wouldn't say it was much - it was that much of a challenge,
but to not give up, to not throw your hands up and say, "I can't do this anymore."
The spirit at NASA was one of never giving up.