How did ribal politics compare with vying for a seat on the space shuttle?
“I would say there really wasn’t much of a relationship. The tribal politics are [contained] within your group. “The very first day when you show up as a shuttle astronaut, at least when I did, the chief of the [astronaut] office comes in and says, ‘You know what, you all have made the cut. It’s not going to be a matter of who gets to fly and who doesn’t get to fly — you are all going to go fly in space. Now is the time to come together and bond as a team. Show us you work well with a team and use your strengths to help somebody else’s weaknesses (and vice versa) and everybody in this room is going to fly in space.’ And that came true within about four years of our [group’s] arrival [at NASA]. “There is definitely competition to get seats on the shuttle and go fly again, but the atmosphere that I experienced during astronaut training was very much one of cooperate, help each other out and we’re all going to go fly.” Why did you choose to hide your astronaut status when you arrived on t
