There are few people more qualified than Jerry Ross to describe what it is like to launch into space.

Retired after three decades as a NASA astronaut, Ross flew into space a record seven times. Over the course of his nearly 1,400 hours orbiting Earth including almost 60 hours performing spacewalks Ross helped save and deploy one of NASA's four "great observatories," worked at two space stations, and served the U.S. Department of Defense on a classified shuttle mission that he still cannot talk to this day.

Ross recounts his experiences in his new autobiography, "Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA's Record-Setting Frequent Flyer" (Purdue University Press, 2013), co-authored with John Norberg.

collectSPACE.com, a SPACE.com partner site, recently spoke with Ross about writing "Spacewalker," his hopes for the book and his thoughts on the next generation of astronauts who will follow him into space, including perhaps his daughter.

collectSPACE (cS):What motivated you to write a book?

Jerry Ross: When I was down at the Cape, quite a few times while waiting for launches both as the leader of the 'Cape Crusaders' and then when I went back as the head of the VITT [Vehicle Integration Test Team], we'd have some periods of time waiting for something to happen and guys would kind of congregate around my office and we'd all tell stories. For years, the guys would tell me, 'Oh, that is a great story! You ought to write a book.' [Jerry Ross on NASA's Columbia Tragedy (Video)]

I always kind of somehow wanted to document what I had done in the space program, partly for my granddaughters who are too young to have experienced much about my flights at all. In 1998, I started getting into genealogy and that gave me a very good appreciation for people of earlier generations documenting things for following descendants.

So I ultimately decided before I retired that I would at least test the waters and see what it was like, if I could find somebody who would publish the book for me and things like that. Ultimately, it led to Purdue University. They were interested in publishing the book and helped provide John Norberg to be co-author with me and off and running we were.

I guess there's one other piece of the puzzle to it, too. My entire career as an astronaut, they sent me out on public affairs types of appearances all the time. And I tried to concentrate on going to schools as opposed to Rotary and things like that. I wanted to try to excite young people about figuring out what their god-given talents were, then make plans for themselves based on those talents, and how best to then hone those skills, not only for their own welfare but the betterment of mankind.

So that theme runs throughout the length of the book. It is something I hope parents will read and either talk to their kids about what I say or encourage the young people to read the book for themselves. [See a calendar of Jerry Ross book signing appearances.]

Read the original post:

NASA's Frequent-Flyer Astronaut Jerry Ross: 7 Spaceflights Were 'A Good Start'