I used to work for the brother of Deke Slayton; When Dick heard I had an aerobatics lesson in a Pitts, he took me to the local strip and let me fly his Archer.
I spent time with and did some consulting work for
Franklin Chang-Diaz. His life story is amazing. He told me a bit about what it was like to do EVA/Spacewalks (your feet get cold strapped to the remote arm). The most compelling thing he told me about being in space and looking down at the earth is that he felt he was the wrong person to be there. He said that poets, artists, writers should be there, that they had the ability to absorb the absolute wonder of it and share that experience with the world. I still get choked up typing that.