A personal account of spaceflight
pp. 197-208
in: Jean Schneider, Monique Léger-Orine (eds), Frontiers and space conquest / frontières et conquête spatiale, Berlin, Springer, 1988Abstract
I will first make a formal personal introduction. I am Jeff Hoffman. I am a NASA astronaut. I joined the Astronaut Program in 1978. I first flew in April of 1985. Because of some of the ramifications, changes, uncertainties that occured in our Space Program, I actually trained for four different flights, all of which were either changed or cancelled. I also was assigned to the very next flight after the Challenger explosion, which would have been an astronomical exploration of Halley's comet and other objects. And I am now, of course, waiting to carry out this flight at sometime in the future. So when people ask me what is the most important psychological characteristic for an astronaut, a space explorer, I would have to say it is patience. Hopefully this will not always be true.