And then looking to my right, out of the window, I could see the blackness of space, I could see Earth, and the curvature of Earth, and the sight of Earth from space was just spectacular.
I cannot ever duplicate that euphoric feeling that I had at that moment.
For me it was a 40-year goal. Often achieving a major goal in life occurs slowly, but this was instant - it was just at that precise moment.
It was once we got out of the space suit that we were able to float around and experience weightlessness.
It is really extraordinary, because there is nowhere on earth that we - or any of our ancestors in the entire history of evolution - experience that.
It was a wonderful experience; the feeling of floating is just unbelievable. Moving around is not difficult and you learn very quickly.
When we were on the International Space Station we had more room - you would push off from one area, very gently, and you would fly to another area.
It was like flying, and that was a lot of fun!
It took two days of orbiting the Earth, 16 orbits a day, before we caught up with the station.
There were three crew members who were there for about two months as part of the long-term crew, so they don't see many human beings, and they welcomed us with open arms.
I think we have a much better view of the Earth from the International Space Station.
The port hole that we would actually look out at the earth was through the floor, so I was always looking at earth.
Then we had some port holes that looked out to the side, and we could see the edges of the Earth - so we had two different kinds of views.
We would go from one to the other, and I would spend most of the 45 minutes - which is half of one orbit - and be either videotaping the view, or just sitting for 45 minutes, peering out, listening to opera, and just enjoying the experience.
The images are vivid in my mind. I continue to enjoy it every day!
It went very quickly and probably the most disappointing thing for me was after a total of eight days in space, I had to return to Earth.
I would have happily stayed up there for months!
For me, there was very little transition from the space flight to Earth.
Within 48 hours I was actually back to my running - I ran a couple of miles.
With Nasa, there was a strong feeling that my flight shouldn't take place. And I think it's somewhat understandable, it was the first truly private space flight.
And I think that they were concerned, number one, about me being a private citizen; and number two, that my age may not have qualified me.
They had probably some reason to be concerned.