You lift off at four and a half million pounds, with seven and a half million pounds of thrust, and eight minutes later you're in orbit at zero gravity. Very, very exciting rocket ride. Then you turn the rocket into a spacecraft, and in my case it was my home for the next week or so. You learn to work at zero gravity, and that's got a thrill all its own. The thing I remember most about that phase is what the earth looked like.
Space is very, very black, and the earth is very beautiful.
Then you come back and that takes about an hour. You turn the shuttle around backwards above the Indian Ocean, fire these rockets for a few minutes to slow yourself down, and then point to the direction you want to go and free- fall through space until you run into the earth's atmosphere. The front end of the shuttle reaches temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought about that on reentry, because my feet were on the rudder panels in the pilot's seat. Of course, the materials that protect you from that are immensely important.