I have a hunch the most important reason we're going to space is not known now.

We didn't have practical model rockets in the '50s. The ones we made were very dangerous and the kids that played with them didn't have all their fingers, and sometimes were blind in one eye.

We need affordable space travel to inspire our youth, to let them know that they can experience their dreams, can set significant goals and be in a position to lead all of us to future progress in exploration, discovery and fun. Thanks to the X Prize for the inspiration.

A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut can't be creative. He has to follow a predetermined detailed checklist written by an engineer and if he gets a little creative he'll never fly again.

When theres ever a breakthrough, a true breakthrough, you can go back and find a time period when the consensus was 'well, thats nonsense!', so what that means is that a true creative researcher has to have confidence in nonsense.

NASA works for the White House. There are many at NASA that wish they were building a modern replacement for the Shuttle. However, they had marching orders to instead work on other things, some of which should have no place in a research organization.

I like to call the difference between research and development. Some people use that interchangeably. They'll say R&D. They're two totally different things.