For a boy from Costa Rica, being an astronaut must have seemed like a pipe dream. But despite long odds, Franklin Chang-Diaz made the cut. In this podcast, he reflects on hurdles he's cleared on his path to space, and describes the sense of both danger and elation that comes with the job. Podcast produced by David Levin. Interview by Josh Seftel. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Major funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Additional funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0229297. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. For more fun science stories, visit our website at pbs.org/nova/sciencenow