Question

assume that you are interviewing sunita William prepare a questionnaire and also the answers ​

Answer 1

Q. Did you always know you wanted to be an astronaut?

A. No, not at all, as a matter of fact. That’s an interesting question because there are some people in our Astronaut Office who knew from the very beginning they wanted to be astronauts. Not me. It wasn’t really until later on, when I was established in my career. In my mid-20s, when I was a test pilot, I had the opportunity to go to Johnson Space Center and meet (astronaut) John Young and understand that he landed on the moon in some type of vertical apparatus – and I was a helicopter pilot, so it seemed like it might fit. Then, I started looking at what I needed to do to become an astronaut.

Q. What did you want to be when you were little?

A. I wanted to be a veterinarian. My dad was a doctor. He’s retired now. He did a lot of research and I got to go to the lab with him when I was young, on Saturdays, and check out the monkeys. We had dogs and I did a little bit of horseback riding and I was just an animal lover. I still am. So, of course, I thought, “I want to be a vet,” and that’s what I grew up thinking that was for sure what I wanted to do. But I didn’t really get into some of my first-choice colleges.

It wound up being Columbia in New York and the Naval Academy in Maryland, and I was scared of New York (laughs), so I chose getting in the Navy and going to the Naval Academy. So, that wasn’t quite the straight path. Then, as a result of that, we sort of choose what we’re going to do in the Navy and, as my big brother joked with me, “The Navy’s not going to pay you to be a veterinarian, so you’ve got to figure out something else.”

I was a swimmer, so I thought I wanted to be a diver. I didn’t get that billet because I wasn’t high enough in my class ranking to get that, so I ended up going to Flight School. It was the time of Top Gun, so I wanted to be a jet pilot. That didn’t pan out either. I became a helicopter pilot. But I found that I really loved flying helicopters. I loved working on helicopters. I loved the crew concept and the teamwork with the crewmen in the back. I ended up helping them, changing engines and working on the aircraft, and that’s what got me interested in being a test pilot and really understanding how these vehicles worked, and that was the step that led me to being an astronaut. So, it wasn’t straight – it was quite a curvy route to get there. But that’s the message that I send home to a lot of kids: Don’t be afraid to fail, because you find out a little more about yourself when you don’t get your first choice and then you end up finding something that you will do well because you like it. When you like something, you will do it well and then you’re going to get the rewards at the end.

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Q. I can’t believe all the records that you’ve set, starting with your Navy career. You’ve set records as an astronaut and as a female astronaut.

A. Let me mention one thing about records. Records are for breaking. They are just little beacons out there that somebody else will want to do and they are measures of the accomplishments that we’ve made so far. I don’t think too much about them because I was also just in the right place at the right time.