Thank you. I had the pleasure of meeting him in Hyderabad. This is quite a different capsule from the space shuttle that I used. It's just amazing to go to space.

• You took space walks on 195 days -- more than 22 hours altogether. That's a record for a woman astronaut.

That was the time when time flew past. The 195 days flew by, literally. We had so much to do. We were in the middle of the construction of the International Space Station (ISS) and that's why we had so many space walks. I was up there changing the temporary electrical and heating systems.

• I thought I'd come to that a little later. But you started this whole business of setting up a space station. I know you admire John Young. In the Apollo 16 mission, he walked on the moon and he inspired you. I believe you listened to him, and he always said that we can't carry on being a one-planet species and we need to fix that.

Exactly. The space station is just a stepping-stone. It's a laboratory, a collaborative work, in which people from countries across the world try to help understand what it is like to live in space for a long time. We can use that laboratory to help and develop materials and new flight control systems, for example, to see how you can go to the moon and, hopefully, on to Mars.

• It's also amazing how this country has had Rakesh Sharma and a space programme of its own. We had leaders whose ideas about using space fired people's imagination. It's you and Kalpana Chawla who made such a big difference.

I think I'm just continuing the legacy of Kalpana. She was an incredible person, an amazing friend, and I learnt quite a bit from her about life as well as about being an astronaut. She mentioned something to me, and to many people, that I will try to explain to the kids as part of my charter here in India -- our planet is one big place where people from all over the world live together. When you are up in space, you see the vastness of the universe and realise you are just one little piece.

• I believe what persuaded you to come to very unscientific New Delhi was the idea of meeting Kalpana's family.

Absolutely. I was here in 2003, after the Columbia accident. I came here with them and we became great friends. I was coming to see my second family.

• In India there was a lot of excitement about you being up there. And there was a lot of concern about you. It got heightened because of Kalpana Chawla.

Unfortunately it took the Columbia disaster to bring back to people's mind the thrill of going to space. Otherwise, it was becoming a little too routine. No matter how we look at it right now, space flight is still experimental. We are on the cutting edge and our spacecrafts have just enough power to get to space and the design to come back. We do have to learn quite a bit. One positive thing about the Columbia disaster was this awareness of space travel, science & technology, and math that it created. I can feel that in (my interaction with) children here in India.

• And how India embraced you! Pardon my saying so, (laughing) but it forgot the other half of you. (Her mother, Bonnie Pandya, is of Slovenian descent.)

Absolutely. It's just overwhelming in India -- right from the small towns I went to in Gujarat all the way to the capital, New Delhi. The kids -- their eyes become huge. The questions flow out of the kids; they are so excited about space.

• You have been competing with the victorious Twenty20 cricket team and you've done fine.

Unfortunately I don't really understand cricket but am happy India did a great job.

• Say that to anybody in India or on a flight and you'll get a one-hour tutorial on cricket.

I hope so. That would be good.

• How do you balance Massachusetts and Mehsana?

I have family and friends all over the world and I'm very lucky for that. I feel a big connection to Massachusetts. I was a child there. I also feel a big connection to India, so going to Jhulasan in Mehsana district of Gujarat was overwhelming. There's lots of (family) history there; there are friends of my father from when he was child.

• In one of your earlier interviews you said that leaving India and settling down in America was perhaps the most enterprising, bravest thing for your father to do.

I feel that way. I have challenged kids here to undertake things they don't know about. Every step I took in life was not all that familiar, but I'd heard of other people being successful in that arena -- for example joining the military and becoming a pilot. My father followed in his brother's footsteps, but it meant leaving so much behind to try to do something in a place very far away. Just this morning I was told he travelled by boat, not by plane, to reach the U.S. I think it takes a lot of bravery to go and try something really new in another country.

• You grew up in a household full of diagrams of the human brain.

Yes, that's very funny. We used to have pictures of the human brain on our dining room table as my father was making anatomy diagrams. As children we also saw jars with brains that were going to be dissected.

• But that did not drive you into medicine or biology.

Maybe it scared me. I am not sure. I have mentioned before that I really wanted to be a veterinarian. I love animals.

• I thought I'd talk to you about your dogs. Tell me about your dogs. How many do you have? Different websites give different figures.

I used to have two Labradors, a black one named Turbo and a brown one named Chocolate Chip, and they passed away a couple of years ago. I wanted a dog I could travel with, knowing that I would be going to Russia for training and would be coming back to the U.S. So I ended up with a Jack Russell terrier and his name is Gorby, after Mikhail Gorbachev. He's small, but a little too big to travel with me, so my parents ended up taking care of him when I'm on my trips. I'll get him when I'm back.

• So you didn't become a vet and became a pilot instead.

When I talk to kids about my life, the message I give is that I've had a lot of things I wanted to do and I kept getting my second choice.

• You wanted to become a diver, and you became a pilot. You wanted to become a fighter pilot, you became a helicopter pilot. But second choices didn't deter you.

The message is that you must take advantage of whatever life hands you. You become good at something, you enjoy it, and it opens doors that you never expected. If you think you didn't get what you wanted and feel bad about it, you wind up missing out or not being able to excel. Instead, you should take advantage of what life hands to you.

• You may get your second-best choice, but you can become the best at it. Tell us about the influence Top Gun and Tom Cruise had on you.

I was graduating from college when that movie came out and I actually didn't know what being Top Gun was all about till I went and saw the movie. Then I saw jets flying around and that's what I wanted to do. I thought it was the coolest thing ever done and I put that as my first choice at a time options for women in the military were limited. I didn't get jets; I got helicopters. But I had a wonderful time flying them and I was able to get into test pilot school, which allowed me to become a test pilot.

• I believe you were a tough test pilot. Did you sometimes knock your trainees on the heads or knees or knuckles?

No, no, I was nice. That was also the first time I really felt that some of the science and math we study could be applied to things we do in normal life. It took me all the way to my mid-twenties to understand that.

• I understood it only in my mid-forties. Until then I thought math was a complete waste.

I remember thinking in college, 'Why am I learning all this?' This is when things get discouraging for kids -- they don't understand why they are learning these things. That's one of the reasons I'd like to become a schoolteacher eventually.

• As a helicopter pilot, you went into real operations in the Persian Gulf -- transporting everything from potatoes to bombs.

My first long deployment was when we went to the Mediterranean -- in the Red Sea area -- and the second was when we went to the Persian Gulf. We were on supply ships. Our ships would be steaming straight ahead and the others would come up alongside and we'd transfer fuel by gas line. The helicopters would do what is called vertical replenishment, or Vert Rep in short. We'd transfer everything -- eggs, toilet paper, balm -- by the sling-load.

• It was also hazardous.

At times it was a bit scary. I did a short deployment in the North Sea. The weather was pretty bad and it was very scary. My last deployment before I went to test pilot school was in Miami. It was extremely rewarding. Hurricane Andrew had pretty much wiped out southern Miami and we were the first pilots on the scene to deliver supplies.

• Were you conscious of your Indian-ness ever? Or were your colleagues?

I think it's like this thing about being a woman. The helicopter doesn't know if you are a man or a woman, white or black, Hispanic, Indian, or Chinese. If you feel those are limiting factors, it's your perception. I've never let anything deter me. I'm not saying it's good or bad but I never let anything get in my way. That's what I tell kids.

• And one day your helicopter landed at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre.

When I was in test pilot school, we went to Johnson space centre. John Young had mentioned that helicopter flying was something they did to learn how to take the lunar landers down (on the surface of the moon). I then felt this was an opportunity for me. I had been the only one telling myself I was not going to be an astronaut!

• John Young was a navy pilot too.

Yes, he was a navy jet pilot. So I figured we are going to go back to the moon at some point of time and that my skills are useful.

• Tell us a bit about the training and how tough it was. Were there moments when you thought it is just too much?

It was basically outdoor stuff. We'd go camping, climb mountains. There was swimming and lots of athletic stuff. There's lot of athleticism in training to be an astronaut -- survival training, lot of outdoor leadership stuff. All physically very demanding. Robotic work is just like flying, so I thought this job was just for me. But when we talked about orbital mechanics, physics, astronomy, black holes and so forth -- and there were people around me who had PhDs in astrophysics -- I thought to myself, 'What am I doing here!' Some incredibly smart people are there in NASA, but they were very nice and put things down in a way that even I, a helicopter pilot, could understand. Kalpana was a fine example of these smart people.

• Did the Columbia accident have an influence on you? Did you worry when you were up there?

I never worried because we went through a lot of looking back at our programme -- the technical aspects of what happened and how to prevent it. We did a lot of research and soul-searching and waited a couple of years, got the right test techniques, and started to fly again. Nobody left because of the accident. The whole Columbia crew decided to continue.

• But the whole talk of NASA cutting corners, compromising on quality and safety -- did that ever affect you?

No, I don't think so. When we know there's a problem, we will hunt it down and do the best to try to understand it. The part that is tough is guessing what the unknowns are. Space flight isn't something we can replicate on earth so we don't know every aspect of it. There's always something that's going to catch us by surprise.

• Like that niggling bit when you were coming back.

When we were out there, we did some repairs. It was on the top and not on the bottom of the spacecraft as we had simulated. Some people in the media had doubts, but the shuttle did come back.

• People in the media always have doubts. If we didn't, we'd be fighter pilots.

Sometimes I feel I don't belong there, because there are people with me who are extremely knowledgeable and much more smarter than I'll ever be. I don't know how I got in. But lo and behold, here I am!

• Tell me a few things you will take back from this trip to India.

First and foremost, the warmth and interest and overwhelming support the whole population showed for my sojourn and for the whole idea of my going to space. I realise that lots of kids here now want to get involved. It's really refreshing that there are so many people, so many kids, who want to get into science & technology and math. It's really inspiring.

• Well science & technology and math are the scourge of the Indian kid. Not only do they want to understand it, they all want to excel in it.

I heard there is lots of pressure on Indian kids and that it is tough. I mentioned that my career path was not always No 1; it was middle-of-the-road.

• Don't say that. Many Indian parents will switch off their TV sets at this point.

I mean, the point is that it is okay to make mistakes if you learn from them and if you don't let them swallow you up.

• The real message of your life is that even if you don't get what's your first choice, it doesn't matter. You can handle it.

If you handle it gracefully and learn from it, then you are even one step ahead.

• In your NASA interview before you went up to space, you said that each time someone comes back from space, it inspires a lot of people to think, 'It could be me.' Same as what you've done now to a lot of Indian kids.

I see myself as a little kid. I hope they see in themselves a little bit of me. We have a lot in common.

• This is probably the youngest population in the world right now, demographically.

I'm encouraged by them because they want to do this type of work.

• I do hope you come back. This is your fourth visit, so I hope you will come back a fifth time.

I hope so. A couple of people have invited me to come here on an annual basis. Hopefully, I'll go into the classrooms and find out what the kids are working on.

• If you want to teach math, physics, and astronomy, come to an Indian school. You will find the best kids.

Okay. I'm all for it.

• Sunita Williams, they'll find you inspiring too.

Thank you.