GRAND FORKS (AP) - Karen Nyberg says it took a few days to get used to a weightless environment but the view from space was great.

The 38-year-old University of North Dakota graduate was part of a seven-member crew on a 14-day mission aboard NASA's space shuttle Discovery last month.

Her job was to control the shuttle's robotic arm and help assembly a new laboratory.

Nyberg says the weightlessness in space makes it seem like one is upside down. But she says after a few days, the mind can adjust.

Nyberg says the view from space of the golden-orange solar rays against the blue of the earth was "absolutely beautiful."

Nyberg took a 3-by-5-foot UND flag with her in space with the names of engineering faculty, staff and alumni. She hopes to present the flag to UND sometime this fall.

Nyberg said she always wanted to be an astronaut.

"I was born to be an astronaut. Since I was a kid, it was something I wanted to do," she said.

Nyberg grew up in the small town of Vining, in northwest Minnesota.

"Where I grew up was a very small town, with a very small school," she said. "It was a good school, but it couldn't offer a lot of choices, which I think ended up being fine. What it did afford me was the opportunity to be in sports where I learned my teamwork and that type of thing, that I think is just as important as academics."

Nyberg graduated summa cum laude from UND and earned her doctorate in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas in Austin. NASA selected her to be an astronaut in 2000.

The Discovery mission was very busy, Nyberg said, but everything went smoothly. "We got lucky, from the launch to land, pretty much went as planned," she said.