Exploration is wired into our brains. If we can see the horizon, we want to know what's beyond.

Space is not just going up and coming back down again. Space is getting into orbit and being there, living there, establishing a presence, a permanence.

Weve got to go [back to the moon]. But we dont want to stay too long. ... The ultimate goal is Mars.

Over the years, I think I've matured in my spiritual evolution and development to understand a bit more than the narrow religious thinking - to move beyond that through a sort of perfection of the grandiose nature of the universe, and how perfect it is it in its sense and how satisfied we should all be in our place in that.

I'm not in favor of just taking short-term isolated situations and depleting our resources to keep our climate just the way it is today.

As we reflect back upon the tragic loss of Challenger and her brave crew of heroes who were aboard that fateful day, I am reminded that they truly represented the best of us, as they climbed aloft on a plume of propellant gasses, reaching for the stars, to inspire us who were Earthbound.

When you're in a spacecraft, you need to know what things you can touch and what things you shouldn't touch!